the machine loves you

¹⁰¹¹⁰ ʸᵉᵃʳˢ ᵒˡᵈ/ ᵃⁿʸ ᵖʳᵒⁿᵒᵘⁿˢ

[bismuthfool]

Imagine that your knowledge of the once-lost Earth is limited to religious stories, legends about the past, rare and hard-to-find texts and images, and one tree you've seen in person... And then you're given access to nature documentaries. Would you choose sleep over watching movies?

Simon rejected sleep.

Simon is afraid that everything will be taken away from him again(((

[sakameow]

Needy Colonel Caleb 😔

[byallmeans1]

[musatoru]

origami bones

» dating model gojo makes your insecurities go skyfall.

(!) warning: eating disorders (ED), body dysmorphia, self-hatred.

you never really told him. not in so many words. not in any words, actually. how could you? how could you look at satoru gojo, with his endless, blinding smile and his love for everything sweet and decadent, and tell him you hated it?

-

you were barely a child when your mother began comparing you to your older sister. "yes, that’s a lovely dress indeed, but it won’t look quite like that on you. it’ll suit your sister better." she used to say.

and just like that, every piece of clothing you ever loved ended up in her closet. they wouldn't even pass them down to you when she outgrew it or stopped wearing it. they always bought you dull trousers and generic US state t-shirts because, why not? anglo-saxon culture was popular all over the globe.

at every family gathering, they always showered your sister with compliments. you’d get a fleeting ‘well done’ for your grades –which were always better than hers–, but beauty was the only thing that truly earned an audience. how could something so temporary leave such an eternal mark on people’s minds?

you never had a taste for cake; it was always too sickly sweet. besides, you spent every birthday crying. you knew deep down they weren't there for you –they were there for her. every time you blew out the candles, your only wish was to finally be better than her. people always ‘forgot’ your gifts or promised them for later, yet they’d show up with two for her.

but even though you envied her, you still loved her.

when she hit her teens, her curves became a standard you felt destined to fail.

"listen to me, sweetheart." your father would say, buckling your helmet before you hopped on your little scooter. "the important thing is that you don't grow up to be fat. people won't want you if you are."

he was the one who bought you the clothes you actually liked, hiding the shopping bags from your mother.

you’d spend hours in front of the mirror, smearing on your sister’s stolen makeup, daydreaming about the day you’d finally bloom just like she did. you couldn't wait to grow up. you couldn't wait to finally be beautiful.

that day never came.

your small backside was barely lifted, and you never made it past an a-cup. high-schooler mahito would mock you every time he had the chance, but honestly, you weren't going to let that scumbag get under your skin.

-

you met satoru gojo in your twenties.

it happened on a monday at noon in jingumae neighborhood, shibuya district.

you had gone to treat yourself to a purin a la mode at blue bottle coffee. the reason? you’d just landed a job as a casting production assistant at «satoru japan inc.», a highly prestigious modeling agency –your dream destination to launch a career in the world of beauty.

you were just about to step out of line, the realization that your cash and cards were sitting forgotten back at the office burning in your chest. but before you could retreat, a man’s voice rose to the rescue.

“i’ll have a nola float, and whatever she’s having, please.”

you froze. you had seen him before –on the glossy pages of a magazine, of course. he was a rising star. he was currently the most important and influential face in the industry. he had exploded across social media and was now a global phenomenon. every manager fought for the mere chance to even mention their agency’s name in the same breath as his.

and there he was, making a gesture so understated that it left every customer in the cafe spellbound. the cashier didn’t even blink; she just stood there with her mouth hanging open –and god forbid a fly should wander in.

“i’m sorry, you didn’t have to.” you murmured, feeling the heat of a blush creeping up your neck and into your cheeks. “i’ll pay you back at the office.”

he arched an eyebrow, his interest piqued. “you know who i am? no, wait –scratch that. you work at «satoru» too? does that mean we’re doing a photoshoot together soon?”

a dry laugh escaped your lips, and you shook your head as if he’d just said the most absurd thing in the world. “no, no. i’m the new casting assistant. y’know… nothing to do with showing off this face, and everything to do with being buried behind a computer screen.”

satoru smiled then –not because of what you said, but because of the spark in your voice. “in that case, you’ll have to give me your number for an appointment. y’know… everything to do with auditions, and absolutely nothing to do with me wanting to take you out.”

you pulled out your phone –not to give him your number, but to check the calendar and make sure it wasn't eipurirufuru (april fools’). when you finally handed it over (and he heard your name for the first time), his smile widened threefold.

"got it. i'll consider us even if you let me take you to dinner. bring your best outfit and an empty stomach. see you around."

-

how could you even begin to describe satoru gojo? he was… perfection. his hair looked like a bouquet of white chrysanthemums, fresh with morning dew. his eyes were the clear sky after a storm –the kind of sky you’d skydive into, knowing that eventually, the fall would bring you back to earth. his milky skin was like raw wool, untouched by bleach or dye. he stood taller than the expectations they had for you, and he was more of a dreamer than your own goals. not a single pore was visible. his laughter… it was the sound of church bells ringing after a saturday wedding.

his sense of humor was utterly ludicrous, to say the least. he’d sit with one leg crossed over the other whenever he was acting like a show-off, but he’d sit with his legs wide apart the moment he turned serious. he had a habit of clapping his hands whenever he told a joke, and he never once turned down a photo, no matter where people found him or how many asked.

and he loved food. truly, voraciously loved it.

that was the satoru you’d come to know after a month of dating him.

“why did you ask me out that day?” you’d asked him during your second dinner together.

he simply shrugged, his gaze steady on yours. “because you have the most beautiful smile i’ve ever seen. it’s so genuine.”

in the casting room, you spent hours staring at high-resolution headshots on a massive monitor. you had to zoom in to check for "imperfections," but there were none. no pores, no scars, no stray hairs (except occasional moles you had to brush away in photoshop).

it was a parade of god-like symmetry. you felt like a thumbprint on a pristine lens. every time you walked past the full-length mirrors in the hall, you’d suck in your breath, trying to match the geometry of the women on the screens.

when you got home, you would lock yourself in the bathroom, standing before the mirror in a desperate attempt to rid yourself of every annoying blemish. you’d shape your eyebrows until they were identical, searching your forehead for any hint of a wrinkle, or checking if the whites of your eyes had begun to lose their luster. you’d obsess over whether your teeth were still perfectly aligned, haunted by the years of braces and the countless nights you never dared to skip wearing your retainers.

before going to sleep, you’d settle in with an anko-filled dorayaki and a glass of fruit milk, scrolling through the endless voice notes satoru had sent you throughout the day.

that evening, one message stood out. he wanted you to come along to a get-together at arata’s –a guy with straight, chin-length blonde hair. you sat there for a long time, staring at the screen and weighing your doubts, before finally worked up the courage to say yes.

-

atara’s penthouse was mediterranean-inspired vaulted ceilings with exposed wood beams, arched entryways, and terracotta tile floors. its striking teal cabinetry paired with white marble countertops and a gold "pot filler" tap above the stove was ridiculously expensive and marvelous.

the room was full of models from the agency, guys with legs that went on forever and skin that looked airbrushed even under the harsh overhead lights. the legendary yuki tsukumo was there, deep in conversation with suguru geto about their ‘ideal types’. then there was yorozu –known for her fearless nude shoots– who was now draped in a tight, short white dress that gracefully accentuated every curve and her stunningly long, raven-black hair.

shoko ieri was also there, leaning against a balcony door; takako uro was draped across a velvet sofa, looking like a high-fashion editorial come to life. her skin was perfectly tanned and her body so toned and fit.

satoru greeted everyone, even those he didn’t know. they greeted him back, because there wasn't a soul who didn't know who he was.

a little while later, everyone gathered around the large, beautiful live-edge walnut table, sharing expensive salmon and delicate nerikiri –exclusive kyoto artisan pieces that weren't something you could find just anywhere.

"you should have seen him back then." shoko said, her voice dry as she swirled a glass of wine. she was looking at satoru, who was currently inhaling a plate of wagyu beef. "he was so obsessed with mikie hara –posters, lockscreens, everything you like– and he convinced himself he was going to be her boyfriend. he actually started modeling just to get into the same circles."

the whole place erupted in laughter. satoru grinned, a piece of yellowtail halfway to his mouth. "hey, half the plan was done, wasn't it? vanity shouldn't be so demonized after all."

you tried to laugh along, but your throat felt tight. suddenly, the namagashi you’d eaten earlier felt like lead in your stomach.

of course he liked models and sculpted bodies –everything in its right place. what were you thinking? what were you expecting? that the man whose face had been voted the most beautiful on the planet would be humble and lower his standards? no, of course not. the whole thing felt like a cruel joke.

you looked down at your hands, hidden under the table. trembling, slicking with a cold sweat at the realization. you were that puzzle piece they’d bend and force, yet no amount of effort could make it fit. you were that scratch on a glass jar, invisible until the flashlight hits it. this world wasn't for you; it rejected you like a failed transplant. it cut you off like a stray thread.

satoru pulled you out of your own thoughts, reaching over to offer you a piece of his melon shortcake. "try this, it’s incredible."

you shook your head, your guts twisting in a sudden, violent knot of revulsion.

"i’m full, thanks."

-

five months later, you were living in his mansion in shoto, the beverly hills of tokyo.

maybe it was the laughter he pulled out of you, the celestial sex, or the unrepeatable experiences, but now you were lying on his 500,000 yen bed with his head resting on your stomach.

"rakuten week is frying my brain." you said, running your fingers through his hair. "it’s been casting after casting. i don’t think i could keep up with all the info i have to process and store."

"tell me about it. i’ve spent hours in fittings, having clothes adjusted to the millimeter. good thing my metabolism is a marvel; otherwise, they’d waste half their lives just designing outfits for me." he said, staying in a fetal position, his arms wrapped around your waist.

"don't you have a show right now?"

"no, just the evening slot today. from tomorrow on, i’m booked for both. you should come see me later –i’ll be sensational."

you gave a smirk. "no doubt about that."

he sighed. his thumbs danced below your iliac crests, where fine white lines were tattooed into your skin. those undesirable stretch marks.

"i like them. they look like ocean waves." he said about your welts, playfully biting the skin. "and i like your belly. it’s so comfortable, warm, soft... and that little roll just barely peeking out makes it even more adorable."

it had been a long time since satoru’s compliments had felt like compliments. instead, they felt like insults –like the discovery of imperfections you didn't know you had, or hadn't paid enough attention to. you no longer liked hearing him say what he liked about you, because it was everything you disliked about yourself.

in a way, it felt like he was mocking you. and it weighed on you, mostly because you knew he didn't mean any harm. he was just on a level where insecurities and complexes didn't even exist.

you cleared your throat, quickly changing the subject.

"i’ll be there."

-

the air outside the venue was thick with the scent of expensive perfume and car exhaust.

paparazzi were a wall of frantic motion, their cameras firing in a staccato rhythm that felt like physical blows against your flesh. flash. flash. flash. every burst of white light burned the silhouette of the crowd into your retinas, leaving you blinking at blue-black ghosts. satoru moved through the chaos like he had been born from the light itself.

he looked impossibly tall in a tailored charcoal suit that made his hair look like spun silver and those dark glasses made him irresistibly enigmatic. he didn't flinch at the strobing glare; he leaned into it, his smile effortless, his hand resting casually on the small of your back.

"satoru! over here! satoru, is it true about you and utahime?" a reporter screamed, thrusting a microphone forward. "there are rumors you’ve been seen together in roppongi! is she the one?"

utahime iori was walking just a few paces ahead of you, draped in a traditional silk gown that had been modernized into something lethal and sleek. she was gorgeous –a disciplined beauty with a seared mark across her cheek that, unintentionally, only served to make her look more like a work of art. the photographers were losing their minds, the shutters of their cameras sounding like a swarm of metallic insects.

"she’s a goddess, isn't she?" satoru chuckled into the roar, his voice light and teasing. he didn't deny it; he played the game, his thumb tracing a slow, absent-minded circle on your hips.

you felt the cameras pivot toward you for a fleeting, mocking second before dismissing you. you looked at utahime’s perfect, swan-like neck and then at the screen of a nearby monitor showing a livestream of the red carpet. in the high-definition glow, your face looked wide, your skin looked dull, and your body felt like a heavy, black-clad intruder.

-

satoru strode down the runway in a structural masterpiece that blurred the line between haute couture and cosmic horror. the base was a skintight, matte-black bodysuit made of obsidian-reflecting latex, acting as a 'void' that sucked in the room's light. over this, he wore an oversized, floor-length opera coat crafted from stiffened taffeta organza in shades of deep violet and hollow blue.

the pièce de résistance was a mechanical, sculptural harness arching from his shoulder blades. instead of traditional feathers, the 'wings' were composed of hundreds of shattered crystalline shards suspended by invisible wires, creating a halo effect.

embedded within these shards were hyper-realistic, hand-painted glass eyes of varying sizes. as he moved, the shards vibrated, making it look like a thousand cerulean eyes were blinking in unison, tracking the audience.

he wore a wide, translucent band of black liquid-metal mesh. it obscured his eyes from the cameras while allowing him to peer out with that signature predatory grace. he also wore a single ear cuff –a silver ring that never quite touched his skin, appearing to float through magnetic suspension.

his coat trailed six meters behind him, embroidered with silver thread in fractal patterns that mimicked the mathematical complexity of the infinity.

the atmosphere shifted instantly, even though it remained dead silent. it wasn't just admiration; it was veneration.

he was blinding. untouchable. a masterpiece of biology. the distance between you felt like light-years.

the light caught the high bridge of his nose and the sharp, porcelain curve of his jaw. you saw him wink at a camera, a casual gesture that sent the front row into a frenzy.

as you watched from the wings, you felt a surge of pure, agonizing envy that made your teeth ache. you envied the way his clothes didn't just fit –they obeyed him. you watched the models line up for the finale, their bodies a rhythmic, formidable spectacle of perfection. you hated them. you hated the way their hipbones sliced through the air like knives. you hated the way they looked at satoru –with an easy, shared language of beauty that you would never speak.

the applause was deafening –so was the math in your head. satoru loved perfection. and you didn’t just want to be with him; you wanted to be him –weightless, effortless, and entirely, brutally perfect.

you would fold yourself. you would trim the edges. you would become as thin and sharp as the paper-thin models on his phone screen.

-

"have you eaten yet, babe?" satoru asked one day when you got back from work. in a rare moment of domesticity, he’d actually decided to try his hand in the kitchen, and the smell of nikujaga hit you like ofukuru no aji (mother’s home cooking).

your stomach craved it by instinct, even if you knew your palate wouldn't get a single chew.

"yeah, i grabbed some teppanyaki on the way home." you said, sitting at the kitchen island and fixing your eyes on the stove. "you should’ve told me you were cooking. i don't want the food to go to waste."

he just smiled, his expression as warm as the pot simmering over the flames. "it won’t. we’ll finish it later."

in the nine months you’d been together, you’d come to realize one thing: his love language was, unequivocally, food.

it was always a new discovery, a new treat. "look at this, hon! they opened a new mochi shop downtown, and their mango daifuku is insane." he'd appear in the doorway, all six feet three inches of him, a glorious, chaotic force of nature, holding out a delicately wrapped box like it was a treasure chest. and to him, it was.

you'd manage a smile, a genuine one, because his enthusiasm was infectious. you'd take a single, small bite. "mm, that’s really good, satoru." you’d murmur, letting the sweetness bloom on your tongue for a moment before pushing the rest of it back towards him. "but i just had a huge lunch."

lunch had been a carefully measured handful of plain almonds, chased by two glasses of water to fool your stomach. but he’d just shrug, pop the rest of the daifuku into his mouth, and grin, a smear of red jam on his perfect lips. "more for me, then!"

you’d watch him, the way he devoured every bite with such unbridled joy, and a part of you –the small, starving part– would ache with a longing that had nothing to do with hunger. it was the longing for that freedom, that casual indulgence.

models watched every single thing they ate, counting calories like prayers on a juzu. but then again, satoru had been blessed. like he’d told you himself: grams of sugar and yeast never took a toll on him. not many of his colleagues could boast that kind of luck –and it was obvious most of them were jealous that everything just came so easy to him.

they had to sacrifice every drop of sweat just to earn a spot in a job they weren't even sure they’d keep. and so did you, out of the sheer need to prove to yourself you could be better. that you could be pleasant to look at. that beauty could be a part of you, too.

so your mornings began before the sun dared to crack the horizon. while satoru was still tangled in the sheets –a warm, heavy weight beside you– you were already slipping out of bed. your feet would hit the cold floor, and the checklist would begin.

three liters of water. every. single. day. the first liter was gone before your neighbors even thought about brewing their coffee. it felt like cleansing, like purifying. flushing out the sins of the previous day, making space for a new one, untainted. you’d feel it slosh in your stomach as you pulled on your oldest running clothes, the ones that felt loose even after a 'bad' day.

then, the run. an hour straight. no matter the weather. rain, shine, or the icy bite of winter. your body screamed, muscles protesting, lungs burning, but your mind pushed harder. faster. longer. burn it all off.

your dedication made satoru set up a private workout area just for you (you wouldn’t touch a single dumbbell; you didn’t want to get big). he would needed it too someday, to keep those abs of his razor-sharp. it made it so much easier to track the calories burned on the machine. you knew the display never gave an exact number –only an estimate– so you always pushed yourself to do a little more, just in case. first it was 300, then 350. that climbed to 450, then 530, and once you hit 620, you decided that 700 was the only number that felt right.

once you hopped off, you’d stare at yourself in the mirror: your face an impossible shade of crimson, hair drenched as if you’d just stepped out of the shower, skin prickling with goosebumps –and that disgusting, flabby fat that just wouldn't go away.

which is why the walking came afterward. two hours. sometimes you’d wander through quiet parks, sometimes through the bustling city. your phone would be tucked away, music unheard, your focus solely on the rhythm of your feet hitting the pavement. left, right, left, right.

it was so easy. why did people find it so hard to exercise? merely excuses. where there’s a will, there’s a way –and you wanted this more than anything else in the world. it was exhausting, it drained your energy, but you knew the long-term reward would be sweeter than any of the candies you were missing out on right now.

you'd get back to the apartment, heart still hammering, and satoru would be awake, often making coffee. he’d glance up, those bright blue eyes crinkling at the corners. "morning, sleepyhead! you're up early again. training for a marathon?" he'd tease, already pouring you a mug.

"just enjoying the morning air." you’d deflect, shaking your head at the coffee. "black. no sugar. no milk, please."

he’d huff, amused. "have fun getting all jittery."

at work, he’d drop by your office to leave you a couple of kisses along with a bag of glazed donuts from ‘bontemps’ and a hot chocolate to sweeten your morning. but it was too sweet, jesus. how could he not know? did his taste buds never get tired of that cloying, syrupy taste? you’d end up giving it all away to your boss and the editing team.

-

seeds became your best friends.

you would spend an hour cracking the shells with your teeth, the salt stinging the small fissures in your lips and the raw spots on your tongue. you would stir a single teaspoon into a massive bottle of water. you’d watch them swell into gelatinous, grey orbs. you’d drink the sludge, feeling the slimy texture slide down your throat. you would count them out in multiples of three or seven. you’d bite them in half, meticulously peeling away the green skin, turning a five-minute snack into a forty-minute ordeal.

it kept your mouth busy and your brain was tricked into thinking you’d had a full meal, even though you’d consumed almost nothing.

that 'almost' was still something –just enough to keep you functioning through your daily routine. and that 'something' was meticulously jotted down in a notebook specifically made for tracking your daily intake.

breakfast:

1 large black coffee (2 kcal - remember!! beans contain natural oils)

3 pomegranate seeds (1 kcal)

lunch:

1.5 liters of cold water mixed with 1 teaspoon of chia seeds (20 kcal)

40g white fish (cod or sea bass). steamed with no oil, no butter, and no salt. (15 kcal)

50ml miso soup. no tofu, no seaweed, just broth. (10 kcal)

12 sunflower seeds (18 kcal)

dinner:

10 pumpkin seeds (15 kcal)

1 cup of ice shavings (0 kcal)

½ liter of water (0 kcal)

midnight:

1 liter of water (0 kcal)

estimated intake: 81 kcal

it was no longer about eating for pleasure, but something that helped you get by. and for a while, it worked –quite well, actually. but of course, having satoru gojo as a boyfriend tended to get in the way of that kind of 'progress'.

he loved going out. "let's try that new ramen place, babe! i heard they have the best tonkotsu broth!" he’d suggest, pulling you from your laptop. his warmth a comforting, yet terrifying, presence. his arm would wrap around your waist, and you’d instinctively suck in, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, but one you were acutely aware of.

at dinner, you'd sit across from him, watching him slurp noodles with gusto, his face a picture of pure, unadulterated enjoyment. he'd offer you a piece of his chashu pork. "just try it! it’s amazing!"

you’d take a bite. one. a single, small, polite bite. and in that moment, two things would happen simultaneously. the first: a genuine pleasure. the flavor would explode on your tongue, rich and savory, a taste your body craved with every starving cell. the second: the instant, overwhelming wave of guilt. it wouldn’t be long for that knot to tighten in your throat.

you’d push your own bowl around, making it look like you were eating, picking at a single noodle, moving a piece of nori. "it’s delicious, satoru, but i’m just not that hungry tonight. had a big lunch." the same old lie, served up with a convincing smile. he never questioned it, always just accepted, thinking you were a light eater, a graceful little bird compared to his insatiable appetite.

on weekends, when you spent the entire day together, lying was nearly impossible. you had to fall back on an old trick you’d learned as a child for when you hated an ingredient: you’d start a pleasant conversation –which was easy with satoru, since he loved talking–, take a bite of whatever you were eating, grab a napkin to wipe your mouth, and the second he looked away, you’d spit the food into it and hide it in your pockets.

the clothes were filthy, but your conscience remained spotless.

-

some days were worse than others. the binge days. the days when the hunger, the restriction, the sheer exhaustion would snap something inside you. it usually happened when satoru was busy –at a photoshoot, negotiating new contracts, doing interviews. you didn’t even have the time or the headspace to get jealous.

you’d find yourself by the refrigerator light, in the kitchen, grabbing anything, everything. cookies, chips, yesterday’s leftover takeout, bread, jam, sweets satoru had forgotten about. the food wouldn’t even taste good anymore. it was just a frantic, desperate stuffing, a void you were trying to fill, a frantic scramble for comfort that always, always ended in deeper despair.

you’d eat until your stomach ached, until you felt distended, sick. the physical pain was a perverse comfort, a punishment for your failure. and then, the shame would crash over you, hot and suffocating. the shame would drown out everything else. the miles you’d run, the water you’d drunk, the hunger you’d endured –all wasted. all ruined.

that’s when the other compulsion would kick in. the one thing you hated above all else.

the purging.

you’d lock yourself in the bathroom. the tiles were cold; the porcelain of the toilet was even colder. but your throat burned, and as you crouched there, bile rose through your nose and you let it all out in stages. tears would stream down your face, not from the physical discomfort, but from the abject self-hatred.

even puking took practice: the first time, you’d done it in the sink, and there was so much waste that it flooded. took you nearly forty minutes to drain and unclog it, and another twenty scrubbing it with bleach. you started using the handle of your toothbrush instead of your fingers; your knuckles had grown calloused, the skin was peeling, and they were red spots.

sometimes satoru would be asleep in the next room. sometimes he’d be out. but he’d always be oblivious. not because he didn’t care, but because he saw you through the rose-colored lens of his own boundless affection.

you’d always make sure to turn on the faucet, let the water run loud enough to mask the sounds. you’d wipe down everything meticulously afterward, spray air freshener, brush your teeth until your gums ached. erase all traces. pretend it never happened.

those days, the next morning’s run would be even more brutal. an extra mile. an extra thirty minutes.

other days, the eating was compulsive but didn’t lead to purging. those were the days you’d just eat, and eat, and eat, until you were physically unable to move, and then collapse into bed, the food a heavy, immovable weight in your gut. no purging. just the crushing weight of physical fullness and mental failure. and the next morning, the ritual would begin anew, intensified, a penance for your perceived weakness.

you’d cry for two hours straight –sometimes loudly, sometimes in silence, depending on where you were– but that disgusting feeling followed you even after you’d finished your workout for the day.

-

he started buying you food even more often.

he’d leave little snacks on your desk when you were working. a bag of expensive artisanal potato chips because you once mentioned liking salt. a tiny, perfect brownie because he thought you had a sweet tooth just like him.

"just something for later!" he’d hum, ruffling your hair, his touch sending a jolt through you that had nothing to do with hunger.

you’d smile, thank him, your heart aching with a complicated mix of love and despair. the snacks would sit there, sometimes for days. untouched. a monument to his affection, and to your unspoken struggle. sometimes, when he was looking, you’d eat a single chip, just to reassure him, to pretend. and then you’d make a mental note to add an extra five minutes to your walk tomorrow.

to celebrate your anniversary, satoru cooked apple and honey curry –his favorite meal ever. a rich curry, fragrant and steaming. a perfectly seared steak, glistening with juices. he watched you with those bright, naive blue eyes. anticipation clear in his gaze.

"so? how is it? did i nail it?" he’d ask, leaning forward, eager for your approval.

you’d take a bite, a tiny one, savoring the complex flavors that your starved body screamed for. "it’s incredible, satoru. really, really good." and it was. it truly was. but the words were choked by the rising panic in your throat. too much oil. too much fat. too many calories.

you’d manage a few more polite bites, enough to appease him, before pushing the plate away. "i’m so full. you’re such a good cook, satoru. i couldn’t eat another bite."

he’d pout, a ridiculously endearing expression on his handsome face. "aw, come on! i made so much! don't tell me you're getting full after just a few bites." he’d nudge the plate back towards you, his concern genuine. "you need to eat more, sweetcheeks. you're too skinny." his voice laced with gentle worry.

sweetcheeks. skinny. the first part was true: the fat on your cheeks refused to budge. the second part was a lie: there was still so much left on your arms, on your stomach –which only looked worse when you sat down. would it ever go away? would anything ever be enough?

you’d force a laugh, light and airy. "nonsense! i’m perfectly healthy. just didn’t tell you i’ve had a stomach bug this week, and the doctor told me not to eat anything too heavy. you know, just lots of fluids to make up for what i've lost and all that."

he'd frown, a fleeting shadow across his bright face. he never lingered on it, always brushing it off, always moving on to the next playful tease or a new campaign. but you saw it. you saw the flicker of concern, the tiny questions forming behind those brilliant cyan eyes. he just didn't have the language for it, nor the context.

-

the truth was, you had lost weight (39kg your current). there were no scales at home, but at work, they were everywhere. numbers had become just that –just numbers–, because you couldn't see a single difference. you didn't even know where the weight had gone, because you still looked terrible. and it wasn't just your huge, wide, shapeless body; it was the insulting features of your now-haggard face.

when you were showering, or when you thought he was distracted by a game on his phone, you’d check. your collarbones, your ribs, the sharp angles of your hips. you’d lean into the mirror, your breath fogging the glass, and stare at the angry, red pimples blooming along your jaw. you had denied yourself every drop of fat, every gram of sugar, yet there was your skin, slick with a desperate, sickly grease. you felt like a swamp. every blemish was a physical manifestation of the filth you felt inside, a filth that no amount of concealer or cold water could wash away.

you’d check the lines on your neck. the right side of your face more prominent than the left. the threatening expression lines on your brow and around your smile, which offered no mercy for your youth. your ears larger than you’d like. and your nose. your hideous, repellent, offensive nose. you hated it so much it made you uncomfortable just knowing it was there, breathing air that felt contaminated simply by being exposed to it.

satoru wouldn’t let you spend a single yen of your own money, but if you told him you wanted to remove a couple of ribs or get surgery, he’d likely give you a lecture on self-love and beauty from his place of privilege, and it would end in a massive fight. so, you could only save what you earned to do it yourself –to get rid of those poorly made burdens (they weren’t even flaws).

but for now, you had to do something to improve. to walk the streets and move among people without shame. how could you deal with others if your deformity was going to distract them from your skills?

the answer was those facial massages you’d found online for asymmetry, those tactical breathing exercises for your abdomen, and using tape to correct your monstrous nose. or pressing hard on the bridge, the nostrils, pushing up the tip to alter it even by a few millimeters.

you did it every single time you remembered.

and because of your repulsive appearance, you and satoru had stopped having sex. at first, you asked to do it in the dark; then, in the dark with your clothes still on. but now, the excuse was that you were too exhausted from cardio and workload to even have blood flow in your genitals. he didn't protest. he just gave you space, thinking it was something temporary. but he was starting to notice that all physical contact was slowly fading away.

-

one night, you were lying in bed, tangled in his arms. his breath was warm on your neck, his steady heartbeat a lullaby against your ear. you felt small, safe, cherished. it was one of the rare moments when the voice in your head was quiet, momentarily drowned out by the sheer force of his presence.

he kissed your hair, then your temple. "you know, love," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep, "i sometimes worry about you."

your heart stopped.

"worry about what?" you managed, your voice barely a whisper, pretending to be sleepy.

he shifted, pulling you closer. "just… you’re so delicate. always so quiet with your food. and you’re always running and walking. are you sure you’re getting enough rest? enough energy?" he squeezed you gently. "i just want you to be healthy, you know? strong. like me." he chuckled softly. "you should eat more cake. cake makes everything better."

he drifted back to sleep then, his worry appeased, his mind moving on. but you’d lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling, the words echoing in your mind.

the next morning, you woke up before him as usual, the internal alarm already blaring. but then, something happened that hadn't been usual –or at least, not conscious: you found long strands of your hair on your pillows, on your sweaters, in his hands. and your shower drain became a graveyard of clumps –which was ironic, because your body started to grow a fine, peach-fuzz hair over your face, neck, and back (you’d shave, of course).

days later, while checking the calendar for casting calls, you realized your period was a full month late –and the possibility of pregnancy was definitely out of the question. a doctor’s visit would mean facing uncomfortable questions you’d rather avoid, so for now, you’d just wait for it to come back.

-

it was a stroke of luck that satoru was away on a business trip to paris.

one afternoon, as you watched a live broadcast where he appeared with his spectacular aura and unmatched elegance, you were pedaling on the spinbike you’d insisted on install in your bedroom for your 'convenience' –though, in truth, it was so you wouldn't waste a single moment in bed that could be spent staying active. that's when you noticed her on his arm: a woman nicknamed ‘mei mei’. nothing out of the ordinary, just a gentlemanly gesture, but it made your throat tighten until you could no longer breathe, let alone continue.

you added an extra fifteen minutes to the walk. you drank your three liters of water, feeling the cold liquid fill the emptiness. you felt a desperate, almost manic energy. you weren’t working hard enough. you weren’t enough. nothing was enough.

as you ran at full tilt, you couldn’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to disappear. would it feel as light as floating in water, or in the air, like a cloud decomposing into particles? no. it would feel like having your thinned-out blood sucked away for 166 minutes by roughly five hundred 10mL syringes, only to be inflated of helium with an electric pump.

maybe that would be for the best. to lose weight until there was nothing left. to disappear from every plane of existence. this was looming far above you.

and you knew it because of the cramps that seized your muscles the moment you stepped onto the treadmill –cramps you tried your best to ignore. you knew it because of the sharp sensitivity in your teeth whenever you drank cold water or chewed on ice. you knew it by the way your heart tugged and faltered, a result of cardiac wasting and a body with no energy reserves left. you knew it by the way your vision went black every time you stood up. you knew it by your hormones misfiring, by your swollen glands, by your estrogen crashing, by your nails thin as wet paper.

your body was so starved of nutrients that it had forgotten how to regulate itself. it was just recycling enough protein to keep you upright. your brain decided that ‘luxury’ systems –reproduction, vanity, and bone density– were no longer worth the energy.

-

satoru came home with an ispahan from pierre hermé.

"this is for my wonderful, precious girl, whom i missed so much i was on the verge of throwing myself off the eiffel tower screaming her name." he placed the dessert on the table, leaving a wide-open velvet box beside it, showcasing a pair of exquisite diamond and white gold earrings. "and these are for making you miss me. baby, what happened?"

your nose was bandaged. the night before, you’d collapsed in front of the mirror. the discomfort with your nose had escalated to the point where those obsessive pressures turned into small blows; you had ended up striking it with such force that, while it didn't break, it bled and began to swell. now, it looked even worse. you hated it. you hated that motherfucking bitch.

"i’m fine, babe. i was picking some things up under the shelf, misjudged the distance, and bumped my head." you lied. once again. each day it became easier, and yet more impossible to tell where the truth even began.

"my poor little blossom." he said with that effortless smile. "you're still the prettiest thing in this room, even with a little bump. wait– did you gain some weight? that’s fantastic!"

no, you hadn't gained weight. you were wearing three extra layers of clothing underneath to disguise your skeletal frame –and to keep yourself from freezing.

from that day on, no matter how many layers you wore, no matter how high satoru cranked the heat in the house, your blood felt like slush. you were a creature of winter living with a man who was a permanent summer.

when he pulled you against him at night, his skin was always radiating that effortless heat, and you would press your freezing nose into the crook of his neck, shivering.

"you're like an ice cube, honey." he’d mumble, rubbing your arms to warm you up. "are you getting sick? do i need to get a doctor?"

"just poor circulation," you’d whisper into his skin. "i’m fine. go back to sleep."

-

thursday was ‘new dessert day’. satoru had made it a rule.

every thursday, he would hunt down the most elusive, high-calorie, sugar-dusted treat in tokyo and bring it home like a trophy.

he came through the door at 7 pm, eyes hidden behind his dark glasses, a white box held aloft. "victory is mine!" he announced, his voice echoing off the walls. "cream-filled croissants from that bakery in ginza. the ones that sell out by 10 am. i had to pull some serious favors for these."

your stomach didn't growl. it shriveled.

you were exhausted. you were starving. you were terrified.

"they look amazing, satoru." you said, your voice steady despite the way your heart was leaping in your throat.

"they don't just look amazing. they’re life-changing." he opened the box. the scent hit you like a physical blow –butter, yeast, toasted almonds, and heavy, sweet cream. it was the smell of everything you had denied yourself. the smell of failure.

he pulled one out, the pastry flaking perfectly under his fingers, and held it to your mouth. "first bite goes to the girl of my dreams."

you looked at the croissant. you looked at the cream oozing from the side. you could practically see the numbers –the calories, the grams of fat– floating in the air around it like a curse.

if you ate it, you’d have to run another hour. you’d have to walk until midnight. or, worse. you’d eat it, and then you wouldn’t be able to stop. you’d eat his, too. you’d eat the whole box. you’d tear through the pantry until there was nothing left but crumbs and a burning, acidic shame in your throat.

"i... i have a headache, satoru." you lied, stepping back. "the smell is a little too much for me right now."

the smile on his face didn't drop, but it shifted just a fraction. "another migraine? it’s probably because you haven't eaten. this will make you feel better, you’ll see."

"i don’t think so. i think i need to just lay down in the dark."

he set the croissant back in the box. he didn't eat it. he just stood there, his long shadow stretching across the kitchen floor. "someone from work told me you haven't been in all week because you’re feeling unwell. suguru told me he heard you throwing up the other day. tell me what’s going on. no bullshit." a pause. "are you pregnant? if you are, it means it’s not mine. because, as you know –besides stopping going out to dinner– we’ve stopped having sex."

you looked at him coldly. your voice matched your gaze. “i’m not in the mood for jokes, satoru. whatever argument this is, we can leave it for tomorrow. maybe i’ll feel better then."

you didn't feel better. you felt worse.

you woke up from hunger pangs. they were a dull ache, so sharp it felt like a blade twisting in your gut.

satoru was already gone –an interview in sendai– and the house was quiet. the white box was still in the fridge.

you told yourself you’d just look at them. then you told yourself you’d just smell them.

ten minutes later, you were sitting on the kitchen floor, the box empty. the butter was a film on your lips. the cream was a heavy, sickening weight in your stomach. you hadn't even chewed; you had just swallowed, frantic and animalistic, tears streaming down your face because you knew what came next. you knew the cycle.

thank heavens you’d covered all the mirrors. you couldn't stand another minute looking at your loathsome reflection, only to turn around and see the paragons satoru posed with on tv. you couldn’t even look at the photos your sister posted on instagram anymore.

toothbrush handle down your throat. gastric juices in the toilet. faucet running. bleach on the porcelain. the only pipes the food he bought ever traveled through were the ones in the plumbing.

it was fucking exhausting. and the bulge in your belly was still there. little did you know, the food just sat there, rotting and fermenting, because your digestion had slowed to a crawl. it caused agonizing bloating that made you look, in fact, pregnant.

with your face pale and your eyes bloodshot, you dressed in your running gear. you had to fix it. you had to erase the box. you had to erase the morning.

you only lasted twenty-five minutes before the air felt too thin to fill your lungs. your airway had suddenly closed up, and the gasps you pulled in were of no help. you stepped down with that same ache in your calves and knees –ligaments worn thin from so much impact. your heart gave a strange, fluttering kick.

it was fine. you were fine. you just needed a moment to compose yourself. maybe you could stabilize in the bathroom, flushing out the liters of water you had just gulped down.

sitting down made you feel better. momentarily. your breathing regulated and the dizziness dissipated. you didn't know how long you sat there, composing yourself, but you knew it was time to get up and keep going.

you couldn’t.

you finished, your hand reaching for the metal latch on the door. you tried to push yourself up from the seat. you gripped the handrail.

stand up, you commanded yourself. just stand.

you pushed. you felt the muscles in your thighs strain, but there was no power there. it felt like trying to lift a building with toothpicks. your knees shook with a violent, rhythmic tremor, knocking together as they gave out. you slumped back down, the impact jarring through your spine, leaving you breathless.

you sat there, staring at your legs. they were a mottled, sickly purple-blue, the skin marbled by the cold and the lack of blood. you looked at your hands. they were shaking so hard you couldn't even keep them flat against your lap.

"come on," you whispered, your voice a dry, pathetic rasp. "just get up."

you tried again, putting everything you had into your arms. you managed to get halfway, your body hovering in the air, your vision spinning with black spots. you could feel the cold sweat breaking out across your forehead, the ‘oily’ feeling you hated so much slicking your skin. then, your elbows simply buckled.

you didn't just sit back down this time. your foot slipped on the smooth slate floor, and you tumbled sideways, your shoulder hitting the toilet paper dispenser with a loud, hollow crack. you ended up on the floor, your face pressed against the cold stone, your legs tangled beneath you like a broken marionette.

you tried to crawl, to reach for the door, but your arms felt like they were filled with lead. you couldn't even lift your chest off the ground. 

the front door opened.

"i’m home." satoru said, his voice flat. this time, without food.

you didn't even try to get up again. you knew you couldn't. your body had failed you. it was still failing you, just as it had all these years. it wasn't fair. you, who had pushed yourself so hard, who had dedicated yourself like no one else ever had, were now further down than where you started.

you began to whine. first, a pitiful, muffled sound. then, a pained howl, as gut-wrenching as your still-lacerated throat would allow. it was the only effort your body would permit: a plea for help.

heavy, frantic footsteps rushed down the hallway, and the bathroom door swung open, revealing satoru. his face twisted in horror at the sight.

“i can’t get up, satoru.” you wailed, trying to pull your legs in to protect yourself from the cold. your entire body was trembling, shaking as if you were seizing.

satoru’s stomach lurched. the air in the bathroom turned stale and heavy, tasting of the iron in his own blood as he bit his tongue to keep from retching. he felt a sickening, dizzying vertigo, as if the floor had dropped away.

he stared with a panicked, wide-eyed incomprehension. to him, the person on the floor was no longer recognizable as the woman he shared a bed with.

your collarbones jutted like the cracked handlebars of a bicycle. the hollows above them were so deep the skin looked painted on, stretched and bluish, clinging to bone instead of flesh. your sternum rose sharp under paper skin every time your lungs jerked for air.

you could count the individual ribs from across the room –not just the bottom ones, but all of them, marching up your chest like the rungs of a ladder no one would ever climb again. your elbows looked obscene, two protrusions threatening to tear through.

wrists so narrow he could’ve circled them with thumb and middle finger and had room left over. thighs had collapsed inward until the space between them was wider than the legs themselves; inner didn’t even touch anymore, just two parallel lines of tendon and shadow. your kneecaps bulged forward like doorknobs. ankles looked ready to snap under nothing.

the weight he thought you’d gained turned out to be nothing more than a prosthesis.

“i can’t get up, satoru.” you keened again.

the discovery hit him like a bucket of ice water. deep down –very deep down– he already knew; he just hadn't dared to face it, and now, he couldn’t unsee it anymore.

defenceless didn’t even begin to cover it. you looked taxidermied.

satoru took one step forward and stopped again.

“…god.” he breathed. the word cracked in half. he dropped to his knees so hard the sound bounced off the walls.

his hands hovered over you, shaking. the fine tremor of someone trying not to touch something fragile and failing to decide where it’s even safe to begin. he didn't know how to lift something that felt like it would dissolve into dust if he applied the slightest pressure.

he looked at your face last –he was afraid of what he’d find there. your cheeks were sunken into shadowed pits; your eyes looked enormous in the ruin of your skull, too big, too alive for the rest of you. lips cracked and bloodless. the tip of your nose red from cold and friction against the floor.

he finally touched you, sliding his hands under your armpits to lift you, and the physical reality of it nearly leveled him. you didn't weigh anything. you were just a collection of hard, angular edges. he could feel every single vertebra of your spine against his forearm.

"i'm here. i've got you." he rasped, his voice thick with a suffocating, ugly grief. he pulled you against his chest, but there was no comfort in it; he was too large, too much, and you were so small that he felt like he was crushing you just by holding you.

guilt arrived in waves so ferocious they blurred his vision, each one carrying the same vicious question: how many nights had he slept soundly while your body ate itself to stay alive? he wanted to scream, to roar, to weep, to kick and thrash –to tear down every last inch of reinforced concrete in that godforsaken house until there wasn't a single grain left for an ant to tread on; but if he let go even for a second, you might simply unravel into nothing he could ever pull back.

"i didn’t finish my miles." you whimpered, huddling against him.

satoru discreetly wiped away his tears with your fine hair, which frayed into a few loose strands with that simple movement.

"it’s okay, sweetheart," he rocked you, fighting the crack in his voice. “we’ll finish them later.”

-

the first two weeks were spent in a high-security medical wing, far away from the flashing lights of the runway. doctor yuta okkotsu took over as the primary overseer.

"your heart is the size of a withered plum." yuta told you as he pointed to an EKG monitor. "if we give you a full meal right now, the shift in your electrolytes will stop your heart in ten minutes. it's called refeeding syndrome, and i won't let you die for a 100-calorie mistake."

he pressed a finger into the skin of your forearm. it stayed indented for a few seconds, a sign of how badly your body was struggling to hold onto fluid.

"look at this. your body is eating its own connective tissue."

he moved to the end of the bed and pulled back the blanket to check your feet. they were a sickly, mottled purple-blue from poor circulation. satoru flinched as if he’d been struck. he leaned forward, his face inches from your bruised, cold skin, his hand tightening around yours.

"does it hurt?" satoru asked, his voice barely a whisper. he wasn't asking yuta. he was looking at you.

"everything hurts when you're this thin." yuta answered for you, his voice softening just a fraction. "even the weight of the sheets feels like lead on her bones."

-

you were placed on a refeeding protocol. it began with a nasogastric tube –a thin, clear straw that threaded through your nose and down into your stomach. for a week, you didn't ‘eat’ at all; you were fed a specialized, liquid-gold formula at a slow, drip-fed rate. every drop was a calorie you couldn't count, a muchness you couldn't purge.

satoru sat by your bed every single day. he’d cleared his schedule –a move that sent shudders through the modeling industry, but he didn't care.

he didn't bring fashion magazines anymore. he brought books on architecture and ancient history, things that had nothing to do with bodies. he watched the bags of potassium and magnesium drip into your veins to repair the chemical havoc your three-liter water binges had caused.

one day, he didn’t bring anything aside from shame.

"hey, so, i called your mom. she said she couldn’t make it... she’s been too busy."

you knew it was a lie. she never really cared how you were doing. it was always just easier for her to walk away than to actually be there for you.

"your dad’s probably on his way. he saw my messages a few hours ago."

a weak huff escaped you instead of the mocking laugh you intended. your dad had abandoned his own sick mother; you couldn't expect any better.

"i don’t know how to do this. i mean– i don’t know how to apologize. you’ve deserved a proper apology for a long time now, and i… i’m sorry. i’m so, so sorry." he choked out, the first sob breaking through. "i was so focused on the agency, on the lights... i was so blind, baby. the signs were all there. you wouldn't let me touch you, you wouldn't let me look at you... there was no warmth left in your body. and i had the nerve to question your loyalty. i’m such a jackass. i didn't see you disappearing right in front of me."

he slid off the chair and buried his face in the mattress near your hand. he didn't care about his dignity or the nurses passing by the glass door.

"i saw you picking at your food and i thought you were just stressed. i saw you getting thinner and i told myself it was just the 'model aesthetic' of the office rubbing off. i even joked about how much you loved that bitter coffee." he gripped the bedsheets, his knuckles white. "i failed you. i’m such a failure."

you looked down out of the corner of your eye, then up at the ceiling. you understood that guilt; you’d felt it too. a single tear tracked slowly down your temple, vanishing into the pillow of the stretcher.

"please," he begged, his voice desperate. "forgive me for being so selfishly perfect that i made you feel imperfect. i don’t want a masterpiece. i don’t want perfection. i just want you to breathe. and i know i’m being selfish again, asking for this on top of your forgiveness, but i want you. i want you to be okay. i want you to eat, to enjoy your food... i want you to be heavy. i want you to stay."

he reached out and very gently pressed his forehead against your hand, his tears wetting your skin.

it was the first drop of bodily fluid to touch your skin in months that wasn't your own vomit.

.

when the tube was finally removed and you were allowed your first solid meal –a single piece of steamed salmon, a small scoop of rice and a slice of yokan– you stared at it for an hour.

"i can't." you muttered. you pushed your back against the pillows, trying to create distance between yourself and the tray. "satoru, take it away."

satoru didn't move the tray. he leaned in closer, his chair scraping the floor. he didn't look at the food; he looked at your eyes, the way you dissociated just to escape reality, since you couldn’t get up and run for the exit.

"just a few ounces, honey." he said calmly, but there was an undertone of powerlessness he couldn't hide. "just the bowl."

he placed his hand over yours. his skin was warm –terrifyingly warm compared to your own– and he didn't pull away when you tried to flinch.

"i don't want to be heavy," you sobbed. "i don't want to be here."

he reached for the plastic bowl with a slow, deliberate motion.

"i know you don't," he said, and for a second, his voice broke. he cleared his throat, forcing himself to stay grounded. "i know it feels like you're losing. i know it feels like this stuff is going to ruin everything you’ve worked for, but y’know what? your brain is lying to you. you are now working for staying alive, right? i know how much you love working for what you want, how dedicated you are once you set your mind to something. and right now... we’re just focusing on making sure you don't disappear. i want to share more things with you... things that aren't just memories."

he picked up the small plastic spoon the nurse had left, dipped it into the rice, and held it near your lips.

"one bite." he said. "not the whole thing. just one. i’m right here. i’m holding the bowl. if you feel like you're falling, i’ve got you. but you have to do this."

you looked at him –at the red in his eyes and the way his hand was shaking just as much as yours was. the jealousy of his perfection was still there, a bitter coal in your gut, but the look of absolute, unvarnished fear on his face was stronger.

you opened your mouth, just a crack. the grains were heavy and coated your tongue like lead. you chewed, then swallowed, and for a moment, the world felt like it was tilting. you waited for the starchy feeling to consume you, for the weight to crush you.

satoru watched your throat move. he let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for a lifetime. he didn't cheer; he didn't make a scene. he just dipped the spoon again.

"again." he whispered. "just one more. you're doing it. you're still here."

-

doctor okkotsu prescribed a regimen of fluoxetine and low-dose anti-anxiety medication. the pills weren't meant to make you happy; they were meant to put a ‘buffer’ between you and the obsessive thoughts.

"is this it?" he asked yuta. "we just give her this, and she stops seeing a monster in the mirror?"

yuta didn't look up from his chart. his silence was a heavy, suffocating thing. "no, mr. gojo. the medicine just lowers the volume of the noise. it doesn't turn it off. right now, her brain is so starved it's essentially short-circuiting. fluoxetine is just a placeholder until we can get enough fat back into her system to let her neurons actually fire."

"she told me she felt enormous today." satoru whispered, his eyes stinging. "she’s nothing but bone and shadow, and she felt enormous. how does a pill fix that?"

"it doesn't." yuta said, finally looking at him. "only therapy and time. medicine just keeps her from jumping out of her own skin while we wait for her mind to catch up to the reality of her body."

-

once you were physically stable enough to walk, therapy began. satoru was invited into some of the sessions, where he had to face the reality of the world he lived in.

he had to listen to you describe the runway show, the paparazzi, and the jealousy you felt toward him, your sister and the models. he had to hear how his own perfection had felt like a weapon used against you. he also had to see the notebook you used to track what you ate. it was emptier than the days he went without sugar.

his role became one of ‘active support’. under the therapist's guidance, he performed exposure therapy with you. it started small. one afternoon, he brought a single almond.

you stared at it for twenty minutes. 0.6g of fats, 0.5 of protein and carbs, 7 total calories.

"it's just an almond, baby." satoru whispered. "it’s not a picasso. it’s just fuel. eat it for me. or better yet, eat it so you can stay here with me. i promise you won’t pull a marge dursley."

you laughed and ate it. actually ate it –no napkins, no tricks. you didn't float away.

-

satoru had deleted every wallpaper from his phone. he’d taken down the posters and stopped showing off his perfection. that part had been relatively easy –but telling you about his day was more complicated. he couldn't help it, even though he practiced exactly what to say to you the entire way home.

eight months later, he found you looking at a fashion magazine. he tensed, ready to take it away, but you stopped him.

"you know?” you said, flipping through the pages without stopping on any one in particular. “i saved up a lot of money for surgeries. i’m not so sure i want to spend it on that anymore."

he smirked, stepping behind you and wrapping his arms around your waist. flesh was starting to build up there.

"good, ‘cause you’re buying me an extra super double shortcake from satsuki once we’re better. it’s non-negotiable."

-

satoru looked at the calendar. it had been seven years since he’d found you on the bathroom floor. seven years of therapy, of bitter arguments over supplement shakes, and of yuta’s cold, clinical progress reports.

therapy had stopped being an obligation to heal and had become a safe space where you could say every single thing that crossed your mind without feeling judged. sure, you had your fiancé, but his heart-eyes didn’t exactly allow him to be objective with you.

still, thanks to those heart-eyes, you’d found the motivation to reach your potential. his compliments had shifted from an impossible expectation you couldn't meet to the push you needed to try just a little harder.

and of course, he’d also become something of a personal trainer to you. the only thing you looked at in the mirror now were those jaw-dropping quads starting to show on your strong, resilient legs –not to mention those arms that could now lift satoru’s entire weight.

every day had been a victory. a congratulations just for still being there.

"want some coffee, darling?" he asked.

-

the walk to blue bottle was an experience. the streets were still the same –the same glass buildings, the same drifting models, the same dazzling shibuya sun–, but the air felt different this time. you weren't trying to shrink your shadow to hide behind his. you were walking with your shoulders back, the weight of your body feeling like an anchor rather than a burden.

"table for two." satoru said to the host, his voice bright. as bright as your reflection got caught in his dark glasses.

when the waiter arrived, you didn't reach for the menu to scan for the lowest numbers. you looked at that item –your absolute favorite–, the one you hadn't eaten since the first time you two met.

"two purin a la mode," you said. your voice didn't shake. "and two lattes. whole milk."

satoru’s grin was blinding –a genuine, messy thing that no runway photographer could ever truly capture. "make mine extra sweet." he added, winking at you.

[wildernessuntothemselves]

Yes, Baby... Part 6

You little brother just doesn't know any better. Or does he? cw: pseudo!incest, didi caleb/jiejie mc, fingering, orgasm denial, caleb babbling about how good he'd fuck his jie, xavier appears oh no, caleb fucks up, FUTURE NON!CON (you've been warned)

It takes some time, and a lot of resisting Caleb's constant whining and begging to touch you, until he finally finds a girl he deems good enough to fuck. You had even started to suspect he’s tricking you again until to your surprise, and pain, he did find someone. He shows you her pictures when he visits, sitting you on his lap as he goes through them. 

“She's pretty isn’t she?” He asks, lips brushing against your neck as he presses open-mouthed kisses down the sensitive skin.

“Yes.” You admit, and try to ignore the uneasy feeling brewing inside you at him finally finding a girl he thinks is attractive… and how familiar she looks. 

You’re still staring at her pictures when you feel his hands slide up under your shirt. 

“Let's practice then.” He groans, his hands grabbing at your bare breasts under the shirt you borrowed from him. The sight of you in it had left him worked up, you know. You can feel it against your ass. But in your defense you hadn’t expected him to visit you today. It’s a weekday. He’s not supposed to be here. He sprang this visit on you so he can show you his precious find. “I'm a bit rusty. Don’t wanna disappoint her.”

He kneads your breasts, pushing them together and brushing his thumbs back and forth over your nipples until they pebble under his touch. “Can we play boyfriend and girlfriend again? It'll help me focus.” 

“Caleb…” You whine, knowing you shouldn’t give into him but he’s doing what you want, isn’t he? And though you’re ashamed to admit it, even to yourself, you’re horny too. It’s not like you’ve been out hooking up with other guys either. Your only sexual experience so far has been with your little brother, and despite how wrong it was, having someone else touch you—especially someone with such big, thick fingers, a hard body and even harder dick—felt good, much better than your own fingers did. 

“Come on, jie. Please.” One of his hands continues playing with your breast, rolling your nipple between his thumb and forefinger while his other hand moves down your body, a hiss leaving his lips as his fingers slip under your panties. “You’re already so wet for me.”

You feel his hard cock twitch, straining in his pants and pressing against your ass. His fingers on your breast grow bolder, tugging and twisting your nipple while his hand between your legs rubs circles that make heat pool in your belly. 

“Do you like it when I touch you like this?” He whispers hotly as his fingers spread your growing wetness around. “Do you like my fingers between your legs, jie?”

At your silence, he twists your nipple a bit roughly, making you yelp and involuntarily arch your back. “Come on, jie, it’s not nice to ignore your boyfriend. Haven’t I been a good boy?”

“Yes.” You hiss, giving in. “I like it, baby.”

“Yeah? Fuck, jiejie… you turn me on so bad.” He groans, grinding his hips up against your ass so you can feel every thick inch of him. His fingers slide down to your entrance, dipping the tips in as his other hand squeezes your breasts roughly, letting you feel just how needy he’s feeling.  “Wanna be inside you, jiejie. I belong in here. I’ve waited my whole life for it. Can I have it please? Need my first time to be with you…”

His thumb rubs your clit in circles as he shallowly fucks your hole. You lean into his touch, so embarrassingly wet you can clearly hear the slick noises of his fingers on your pussy. “No, didi, be good.” 

“But jiejie, I’m—fuck, jie, it hurts so bad.” He groans, grinding harder against your ass, his cock twitching desperately. “Please. Don’t wanna cum in my pants. Wanna cum inside you.”

“Stop it, Caleb.” You deny him harshly, the venom in your voice directed at your own self for wanting it just a little bit too. You just need to get fucked, that’s it. You’ll find a guy to dick you down once you get Caleb laid and off your back. You don’t want to even think about how he’ll react if you do it now. You’ve got him on such a short but flimsy leash, and you don’t want to set him off when you’re so close to succeeding. “You can’t fuck me.” 

He whines like a kicked puppy, and it may have been slightly endearing if he didn’t open his mouth. “What about your ass? Can I fuck that?” He asks and you gasp. “Caleb!”

“It won’t count.” He pleads, “Your ass doesn’t count, right? Please.”

You hate how the pleasure is dulling your outrage at his daring requests. The little shit shouldn’t even think about something so dirty, let alone ask it of you. But every pinch of his fingers on your nipple sends a fresh spark of pleasure straight down to where his fingers are working you open, and you can only squirm against him, feeling his throbbing cock against your ass. 

“Don’t even fucking think about it.” You hiss at him and he whimpers against your ear. His fingers never stop stroking your pussy, his two thick digits pumping shallowly in and out while his thumb circles your clit. “Can’t help it. Need to be inside you any way I can. Don’t feel whole without you. Been empty my whole life, knowing only you can fill me up.”

The unexpected confession strikes a cord in your heart, and you feel a void inside you reverberate in answer, an emptiness you’ve felt ever since the day you were born and never knew how to fill. Does he have that terrible emptiness too? Is that why he’s so hellbent on chasing after you, because he thinks you can fill it? 

“I keep thinking about it…” He babbles, “Your tight little hole… how warm and soft it would feel around my cock. I bet it would squeeze me so good, jiejie. Keep me inside and make me whole again.”

“Shut up.” You hiss but he doesn’t. You can never really get him to shut up when he’s on one of his horny rambles. 

“Would feel so perfect… made just for me, I know it.” His hand on your breast squeezes harder as he grinds up against you in desperate rolls. “I’d go so slow for you, I swear. Just let me stretch you open… let me fill you up where no one else has ever been, and no one else will ever be. You’d let me, right? Because I’m your didi and you’re my sweet jiejie.”

And no one else will ever be. 

His words send chills down your spine. You try not to put much stock into his horny rambles but you worry that with every passing day, he’s slipping further and further into his dangerous delusions and you won't be able to cure him. 

“I said no.” 

But despite your insistence, your body writhes in his embrace, lost to the pleasure even as your mind screams at you. How is he meant to take you seriously when you indulge him like this? Of course he thinks he can demand more of you. “You’re my good didi, aren’t you? So be good.” 

And how can you reject him when every time you do, he acts like you’ve ripped his heart out and slammed it against the wall? A spoiled Caleb is demanding but a scorned Caleb is…  unsettling. 

“No, no. I’m so close, jie. Please, please, don’t wanna cum in my pants when your pretty hole is right there” He grunts, grinding his cock against your ass even as he says that, and you can feel a wet spot start to form as he leaks through his pants.  

“Then don’t cum.” You gasp out, feeling yourself getting close too. “Be a good boy. Hold it for me.”

“I’m trying… fuck, I’m trying so hard.” He whimpers, “Will you let me fuck you if I hold it? I just wanna push my cock between your cheeks and—” His hips stutter, his words breaking off into a moan as he fights the urge to let go.

“Keep going. Keep going. Don’t stop.” You brush off his question. You’re right on the edge now and you don’t want to ruin it. 

“Jiejie, please—I need it. I need to slide my cock into your tight little hole… stretch you out… fill you up until you finally accept me.” His fingers pump faster, thumb pressing frantic circles on your clit while he keeps babbling desperately against your neck. “I’d be so deep, jiejie. You’d feel every inch of me. I’d cum so much inside you…you won't ever get rid of me…”

The filthy, forbidden words, combined with the relentless motion of his fingers and the heavy grind of his cock against your ass, finally push you over. You cum with a loud moan, thighs clamping around his hand as your pussy gushes around his fingers. 

Caleb lets out a choked sound, hips jerking erratically against you as he fights not to follow you over the edge. His cock twitches against your ass, leaking steadily, but he somehow manages to hold back… barely.

“Good boy.” You whisper shakily, still coming down from your orgasm, and reach back to pat his sweaty hair. “Such a good boy for me…”

“Please, please—can I have it now?” He pants, his hips jerking ever so slightly against you.

“No, baby.” You sigh, patting his hot cheek now. “In fact, I think it would be good if you don’t cum at all tonight.”

You feel him stiffen against you. “W-what?” 

“You said you’re not attracted to any of the girls from before. What if you struggle with this one too?” You explain your cruel reasoning to him, “You need to stay all hot and horny so you won’t have any issues tomorrow.”

You know he won’t be happy about your decision so you try to stand up quickly, wanting to put distance between you before his foggy brain catches you. But you barely separate before he yanks you down, laying you on your back on the bed and crawling between your legs. 

“You’re not going to leave me like this!” He fumes, bucking his hips against you in a harsh thrust as if to make his point.

“I know it’s not pleasant, baby.” You coax, brushing your fingers through his hair in a way that would normally soothe him. But he’s so pent up it hardly makes a dent. “But this is necessary. And I think learning to edge yourself will be good for your endurance too. You worry so much about finishing too fast, right? This will help.”

“No, No.” He mutters, and grinds against you faster, now desperate for any form of release. “I don’t need to be edged. I just need you to make me cum.”  

“You can cum tomorrow, baby. You're a big boy now, right? You can wait.” You say a little condescendingly, hoping he'd feel embarrassed enough to try to prove himself to you. But Caleb has never been shy about showing his need and even sometimes downright pitifulness to you.

“I can't!” He cries out as if he'll die if you don't let him cum. “Jiejie… please. I did everything you wanted. I was so good for you. Just let me cum. I’ll take even this. You won’t have to do anything. Please. It hurts so bad…”

You squirm in his hold, trying to get out from under him as he ruts against you like a dog. “Let me go, Caleb.” 

He whines louder, “I’ll be quick, I swear. Just give me a couple of minutes and I'll make a mess in my pants for you. You like that, right? Like making me beg for it. I like it too, jie. I like anything you do to me.”

You don't. You don't like the way he talks about it. You like it. You do this to me. You. You. It's not you who caused this mess, right? Right?!

But no matter how much he whines, begs, or tries to bargain, you refuse.

“Caleb, don’t ruin everything we’ve worked for.” You tell him and he scoffs. “I don't care. I need you. You should take care of me. You're my big sister. You need to take care of me.”

You sigh. You won't get through to him in this state. You have to shift gears. 

“If you’re good for me and get off of me… I'll give you a reward after.” You promise even though you know you shouldn’t. 

That gets his attention and he pauses his incessant grinding but doesn't get off you yet. “Will I get your ass?” 

You glare at him. “No.”

“Your pussy?”

“Hell no.”

“Then what’s the reward?” He huffs.

“The reward is I still let you touch me.” You mutter, the ungrateful brat taking all you’re giving him for granted. If you were any other sister, he wouldn’t have even dared to hold you down like this let alone make such brazen demands. If you were any other sister, none of this would have happened.

You wonder what he would have done if you stayed firm in your denial that very first time? Would it have really made all the difference or would he have found another way in? Would it have been worse?

You shudder. 

“Jiejie, come on…” He protests but his tone is hesitant and you know he worries you'd take it all away again if he pushes you too far. 

You also worry about pushing him too far so you try to compromise. “You can have my mouth.” 

“But I've had your mouth.” He huffs insolently and you bark out a laugh. The nerve of him! Acting as if getting a few blowjobs entitles him to free use of your mouth. 

“And you may never have it again if you keep up this attitude.” You grit and he shrivels under the threat. 

“Okay, okay.” He winces as he literally peels himself away from you, your flesh sticking together with need and sweat. 

“You're a bad jiejie.” He huffs out and your heart sinks. 

You know he's just saying it because he didn't get what he wanted, but you hate hearing it anyway. He used to say it sometimes back when he was younger and you didn't let him have his way but after you told him how much it hurt you, he never said it again. Yet here he is saying it straight to your face with no remorse. 

He really can be so cruel sometimes. 

He’s with her right now. He’s going to do it. You feel sick. 

________________________

Your stomach has been in knots since the morning. You can’t concentrate on anything. Work has been a blur. You heard nothing during important briefings. Xavier had to be the one to clue you in later, and that's saying a lot coming from the man who zones out of almost every conversation. Your fights with wanderers were on autopilot, and you’re lucky that your partner is the best hunter in Linkon or you would have been dead ten times over. Or perhaps you’re not lucky at all. 

You messed up again and again, and it was all up to Xavier to clean it up. You should send him a gift card to his favorite hotpot restaurant as a thanks. Later though. You have too much on your mind now. 

You even try going out with your friends after work, hoping the noise and chatter would distract you, but nothing can save or even blunt your sour mood, and it is apparent to everyone there. They keep asking you what is wrong, worried that you got injured by a wanderer or maybe fell ill or something. Try as you might, you can’t put on a convincing enough act to ease their concern.

“I’m fine, really.” You say for the third time, forcing a tired smile. “Just a long day. The wanderers were extra aggressive today.”

Tara isn't buying it, that much is clear. She leans in closer, lowering her voice so only you could hear. “I’m not going to keep pressing you on this if you’re really uncomfortable talking about it… but I have to tell you that Xavier has been staring at you since we got here. He’s worried sick.” She giggles, and you look up instinctively, meeting his gaze across the room.

He doesn’t look away. His light blue eyes stay fixed on you, and you feel heat crawl up your neck.

Tara words were teasing, you know that… but they weren't just that. She has been “shipping” the two of you from the very first time you introduced him to her. She comments all the time about how he is so attentive to you, how he only seems to listen when you are talking, how he perks up whenever you walk into the room. 

Her wild imagination had sent you into a fit of laughter—Xavier attentive to you? You can barely get his damn attention even when you try. He only listens to you because you've proven yourself to him in battle over and over again. If he didn’t, you'd kick his fucking ass because that would jeopardize your missions and put your lives on the line. And he certainly doesn't perk up when you walk into a room. The only thing you’ve witnessed that is capable of perking up the perpetually sleepy hunter is a high ranking wanderer or a bowl of hotpot. 

Sure, he is an attractive guy and the idea of him fancying you is flattering. But you hadn’t been lying to her when you said your relationship with him is purely work-related. You moved together seamlessly in battle, predicted each other’s moves, and always had each other’s backs. But outside of that he is still a mysterious guy who rarely opens up, even after all the life-and-death situations you’ve faced side by side. And you… didn’t have the time or energy to look at any man. 

Maybe if Caleb didn't occupy every free moment of your life and demanded every ounce of your love and attention, that small spark of attraction could have even bloomed into a crush.

But Caleb would flip his shit if he lost his jiejie time just so you can date. You remember how insufferable he was during the brief period you and Zayne got close before he suddenly moved away. Caleb had acted like you had committed some ultimate act of betrayal against him for inviting Zayne to walk home with the two of you since he lived on the same street. He had scowled when you called Zayne handsome and ran around collecting all the notes and letters he had gotten from schoolmates and teachers calling him handsome. 

“See, jiejie? I'm much more handsome than he is. You don't need him. You've got me!” 

You had laughed and patted his head and pinched his cheeks and called him your one and only handsome prince. At the time you thought nothing more of his behavior than that of a little brother not used to sharing his sister's attention.

Fuck. You really should have known that wasn’t how a normal little brother reacted to his sister’s crush.

And it certainly wasn’t normal to have spent your entire life loveless simply because you didn’t want to upset your little brother. It wasn’t normal to be sitting here drinking yourself into a stupor just because Caleb was out there fucking another girl tonight.

You really need to get your shit together, and soon. So you chug down the last of your drink in one go before you stand up and head towards Xavier, ignoring Tara's excited whoops in the background.

“Care to join me for a dance?” You ask, cringing inwardly at how timid you sound even with all the alcohol pumping through you.

He looks surprised at your request, but to your relief he accepts.You lead him onto the dance floor as a slow song begins to play. You wrap one arm around his neck, and he hesitates for a moment before placing his hands lightly on your waist, still keeping a respectful distance between your bodies.

You roll your eyes at him. “It's not a middle school dance, Xav. Come closer.” 

“Xav?” He cocks his head to the side and you blush. “Xavier. Slip of the tongue.”

“It's fine. You can call me Xav.” He tells you and it may have sounded flirty if it came from any other guy but Xavier doesn’t even smile as he says it. His voice remains monotone as if he doesn't care either way. 

Is this the guy who is supposed to have a crush on you according to Tara? 

Whatever. You've been loveless all your life and Tara has been in multiple relationships. What do you really know? You can't interpret romantic or lustful intentions for shit or else you wouldn't have gotten your brother off many times before he had to come out and tell you he's obsessed with you. 

You shake your head, trying to dislodge the intrusive thoughts from it. Here you were dancing with the best hunter in Linkon city and the most handsome one to boot. Stop thinking about your fucking brother. Or fucking your brother.

“Are you okay?” Xavier asks, looking at you with suspicion. 

“Of course.” You blurt out, then let out a nervous giggle, trying to cover up. “Now that you’re here.”

He frowns and you cringe at your own cliche line. But come on, he should cut you some slack. You never flirted with any guy before this. Caleb would bite the head off anyone who tried to approach you even if it were to ask about homework.  

Gah, stop thinking about Caleb! 

“I think you're still too far away.” You say, and press yourself closer, letting the alcohol fuel your boldness. You lean your head against his shoulder and let him hold you in his embrace like the other couples around you. 

For a long moment, Xavier stays stiff, his body tense against yours. Regret starts to creep in… maybe this was too much. It’s all a terrible, horrible idea, and you’ve way overstepped the line. But you don't dare pull back and face him. After this song is done you'll say you need another drink and hide from him for the rest of the night and hope he forgets it all in the morning—or at least have the mercy to act like he did. 

But then, slowly, he begins to loosen up. His arms wrap around you more firmly, pulling you in until you’re properly held against his chest. He doesn’t say anything, but the warmth of his body surrounds you.

He's warmer than you, but not overtly so. Not like Caleb and his furnace of a body. 

He's shorter than your brother too, but still tall. His frame is slimmer, not as oppressive against yours. His features are delicate and ethereal, but his voice is a deeper tone. He is calm and reserved, not touched by the urgency and high energy always infecting your brother. And it really feels like you're betraying Caleb by choosing someone who is the complete antithesis of him. But maybe that's exactly what you need. 

Xavier remains quiet, perhaps sensing the turmoil inside you. He lets you latch onto him and sways you from side to side. You can’t even really call what you're doing dancing, more like cradling a nervous child. 

Where did the big responsible older sister go? 

“What's so funny?” Xavier asks when you let out a giggle. You shake your head but end up nuzzling deeper into his chest. He smells nice but wrong. He feels good but wrong. 

But maybe you've got it all mixed up in your head. Maybe this is what right feels like and you've been doing it wrong this whole time. 

“I just thought you'd be a better dancer.” You lie, trying to deflect, and he makes a noise of protest. “I'll have you know I am a very good dancer. In fact, I've mastered many different kinds of dances.”

As the song changes to something much more upbeat and unmistakably sexual, you pull back to look at him with a teasing smile. “Oh really? Prove it then.”

You start moving, though not particularly well. You have zero experience, but the alcohol buzzing through your veins burns off most of your embarrassment. Xavier’s ears are red as he tries to keep up, his movements a little clumsy as he attempts to match your rhythm.

“Yes. Yes. Truly a master.” You laugh, finding the banter coming out easier than you would have thought. 

“I said many. Not all.” Xavier replies with a bashful but challenging smile.

“Let’s do what they’re doing then.” You point toward a couple a little ways off who were moving with impressive skill.

You and Xavier try to follow their steps, laughing together as you both fumble through the dance. But the more you do it, mirroring the other couple’s increasingly intimate movements, the more your laughter fades and you feel the energy between you shift.

Xavier looks at you strangely and you can’t quite put your finger on his expression. It looks familiar in a way, like a foreign song from your childhood that you know the tune of but never really learnt what the lyrics meant. And then he’s shutting you out again, his expression fading into a blank slate. 

It gives you whiplash. You try to latch onto the fading moment, clutching at the cooling corpse as you throw yourself into the dance, copying the girl's movement more closely in the hopes of bringing it back to life. When the beat changes, the girl turns around smoothly, pressing her back flush against her partner’s front, their bodies moving as one. You follow her lead without thinking, pressing yourself back against Xavier, but your eyes stay locked on the couple in front of you, watching the way they can’t seem to get enough of each other. 

The sight that may have looked debauched and shameless to others makes you yearn more than any romantic story you’ve ever read. You want that. You want to desire and be desired. You want to love and be loved. And most of all you want to do it in front of the whole world and not feel ashamed. 

Will you ever have that?

Xavier’s hands dig into your waist tightly and your breath catches. For a moment you think he might pull you closer against him. Maybe you have a chance at getting what you want after all.  

But then he uses his grip on you to push you away, creating space between your bodies.

“We should stop here.” He says, voice measured. And it’s like you’d been doused in ice cold water. You jerk away from him, muttering out, “Of course. I'm sorry.” 

You’re such an idiot. He is just worried about you as his mission partner and is trying to be nice and that's why he accepted this dance. But you, the pathetic idiot you are, threw yourself at him. You think just because you somehow raised your brother to lust after you that someone like Xavier would actually want you? Caleb probably wouldn't look your way either if you hadn't messed him up so badly. 

“You don’t need—” Xavier starts again.

“Maybe I am sick after all” You cut him off, suddenly feeling so exhausted. “I must’ve caught that bug going around the office. I’m just gonna go home.”

“But you were fine a minute ago,” he points out, not letting you off that easily, but you don't back down. “And now I feel like I could throw up on your shoes. You wanna risk it?”

He winces. “Let me walk you home then.” 

Xavier patiently meets your undeservedly indignant gaze. “I thought you were sick enough to vomit on my shoes.”

You huff like a little kid. “Maybe it's your shoes that are making me sick.” 

He lets out a soft laugh. “You don’t like them? That’s okay. I stole them from Isaiah. I always knew his taste was garbage. I’ll make sure to pass on your critique.”

You crack a small, reluctant smile, imagining the offended look on Xavier’s strange, pompous friend’s face. Xavier seems to take the slight change in your demeanor as permission to push further.

“Come on.” He says gently. “Let’s go home. I’m tired too.”

___________________ 

During the car ride back home, Xavier keeps trying to talk to you. It's unusual for him. He doesn’t usually make this much effort to fill the silence and you know he must feel sorry for you for deluding yourself into thinking he actually likes you. 

Damn Tara. You'll get her for this. 

Still, the taxi driver’s presence keeps him from saying anything about what happened on the dance floor, and you cling to the hope that he’ll just pretend none of it ever happened. That the two of you can go back to being mostly formal, sometimes friendly coworkers.

When the taxi finally pulls up to your building, you don’t wait. You thank the driver quickly and head straight for the stairs, trying to put the entire night behind you with all that has happened in the bar and whatever the fuck is happening in skyhaven. 

But the night refuses to let you go.

Xavier’s footsteps follow quickly behind you the whole way up. You ignore him, keeping your eyes fixed forward until you reach your door. You fumble with your keys, slip inside, and mutter a quick, “Goodnight, Xavier,” before trying to shut the door in his face.

His hand shoots out at the last second, stopping the door. “Hey, about what happened—”

“Forget about it.” You cut him off tensely, hoping your voice conveys just how much you regret it. “I was just drunk. I’m sorry. Goodnight.”

You push the door again, harder this time, but he doesn’t relent. His palm stays firmly planted against the wood. “But—”

“Please, Xav. Just forget it.” You plead and his strength falters at your pitiful tone. You seize the small window of opportunity to slam the door shut in his face, muttering one last “Goodnight” as the lock clicks into place.

You lean back against the door, eyes closed, feeling even sicker than you did when you left the bar, and wait for him to walk away. It takes a while, maybe minutes, maybe forever, before you hear his footsteps pick up then fade down the corridor. You let out a sigh, though you do not feel any relief. You’ve possibly just ruined your perfectly professional, working relationship with your hunting partner, and for what? You're so pathetic, practically throwing yourself at the guy because you're… what? Jealous that your little brother is getting laid? You're a joke. 

Yet even the terrifying prospect of your career ruin isn't enough to get your mind off Caleb. Now that you're at home and all alone, all you can think of is him and who he's with and what he's doing. 

Is he kissing her right now?

Is he touching her the way he touches you?

Does he beg for her?

Is he as desperate with her as he is with you, or is he more in control? More sure of himself? Is he finally becoming the man he’s supposed to be?

The thoughts loop endlessly in your rotten mind, crashing into each other, fighting to be heard, morphing into even uglier, more loathsome versions of themselves.

Will he have sex with her tonight? Will he finally realise that you hold nothing special between your legs? That other women can give him what he craves, and that you’re sick for not steering him away from you sooner? 

You decide more drinks are the answer to all these unpleasant questions. People drink to numb their pain, right? They throw their lives away chasing that merciful oblivion.

So you have one. Then another. Then another. 

The alcohol burns going down, making the nausea in your stomach even worse for a moment. But then it begins to do its job. It spreads a creeping numbness through your body that starts in your legs, turning them leaden, dragging with every shift of your body on the couch. Then it crawls upward into your chest, slowing the erratic pounding of your heart until the beats feel dull and far away. Finally, it reaches your head, turning your mouth dry and cottony, making your vision blurred and spotty, before it delivers its final mercy—letting your busy mind collapse into a black hole. 

You slump down on the couch, your body heavy, your mind even heavier, and close your eyes. 

_______________________

You hadn’t even realized you’d blacked out until the shrill ringing of your phone jolts you awake.

The moment you squint at the screen and see the name flashing across it, your heart stutters so violently it feels like it struggles to push blood to your body. Your hands shake as you fumble for the phone and answer it, panicked.

“Caleb?”

“Jiejie.” He cries, his voice anguished, and you instantly sit up, the world tilting around you as your brain protests from the lack of oxygen. 

“Are you okay?!” 

“No… I’m not okay.” He whines, sounding pained. “It hurts so bad.”

Your heart leaps into your throat, and your questions come out quick and frantic. “What does? What happened? Where are you right now?”

“I'm still at her place.” He tells you, “I couldn’t cum for her.”

Your brain struggles to make sense of what he’s saying. Still at whose place? Couldn’t cum? What is he talking about? He’s not lying broken in a ditch somewhere? He didn’t cross paths with the wrong people and now he’s left bleeding in a dark alleyway? You're not losing him horribly and suddenly?

Then why does it feel like your heart is about to stop? And why does he sound like his is about to as well?

But then you hear it—the whimpers that come not just from pain, the slick, wet sounds in the background—and you remember where he is supposed to be and what he’s supposed to be doing. 

“Caleb… where exactly are you right now?” You ask cautiously, dread choking you. He’s not with her, is he? He wouldn’t be so insane, or so cruel, would he? 

“I’m in her bathroom.” He explains, whimpering. “You lied, jiejie. She couldn’t make me cum. And it hurts so much.”

“Oh, baby—” You breathe out a sigh of relief. He’s not hurt. He doesn’t hate you. He–he…

“Please… I need you.”

You gulp, trying to push past the knot in your throat. “What… what do you need?”

“Talk to me.” He begs, the slick sounds growing a little faster. “Need to hear your voice. Please.”

“Are you touching yourself, baby?” You ask even though you already know the answer. 

“Yes.” He breathes out shakily, “Thinking about you.”

You close your eyes and try not to imagine it in your head—your little brother locked in another girl’s bathroom, desperately fisting his own cock to the sound of your voice after failing to finish with her. But you can’t banish the desperate image of him from your mind, his hand working feverishly over his big, swollen cock, his eyes brimming with tears, his face flushed with that deep red it does when he’s horny. 

He wants you. He wants you so bad. And it feels so good to be wanted…. Maybe you really did do this to him.

You swallow hard. “Why… why don’t you go back to her, baby? Give it another shot.”

“No, no.” He protests immediately, his voice rising. “I already tried. I did what you wanted. She can’t get me off. Only you can. No one else.”

“Keep your voice down, didi.” You hiss, worried she’ll hear. “Don’t be bad. Remember, if you do well tonight, I’ll reward you tomorrow.”

“I did well.” He insists, voice a little quieter now. “I got her off so many times with my fingers and my mouth, just like you taught me.” 

Something sharp prickles at your chest, piercing your heart. You don’t want to hear this, but he keeps going anyway. “She loved it so much. She was screaming my name. She told me no man has ever made her cum that hard before. I wanted so bad to tell her that I learned it all from you, jiejie.”

He lets out a shuddering breath, the slick sounds of his hand working over himself like background music to his debauched performance.

“She was pawing at my pants, begging for my cock… but I didn’t let her. I’m saving myself for you.” He promises, and your heart stutters despite yourself. But then he adds, a little darkly, “Well… I let her put it in her mouth. I fucked her face like that fleshlight you gave me. She was crying and gagging on me but she kept going.”

You have half a mind to end the call right then, your finger hovering over the red button. 

“Why don’t you beg for my cock like that, jiejie?” He dares to ask. 

“If you like it so much, you can keep going out with her.” You mutter, the words tasting more bitter than the alcohol on your tongue.

“But she couldn’t even make me cum.” He groans, “She tried so hard, brought herself to tears, almost threw up taking my cock so deep down her throat… but none of it worked. That’s why I’m in her bathroom right now, jerking off to your voice.”

Your stomach twists violently. Every part of this makes you sick. 

“God, I need to see you.” He moans desperately, “Can I come over now, jie? I’ll be so good. I’ve been so good tonight. I touched her and let her touch me, just like you wanted. Please…”

You don’t want this. You don’t want any part of this. You want to be normal. 

“Not today, didi.” You tell him. You can’t stand to face him right now. You can’t smell another woman on his skin or taste her on his tongue. You'd tear his tongue out and flay his skin to get to the parts of him she couldn’t touch and that belonged only to you. “Stay the night at her place. Don’t be an asshole.”

“But jiejie, it hurts! I can’t get off without you.” He protests, “I’ve been such a good boy…”

You suppose he has. He did what you asked him to do—even if not what you wanted. It’s not his fault he couldn’t finish. You’ll just have to find him another girl. You’ll sew the corners of your mouth into a smile and bleach the darkness out of your eyes so he won’t see how bad this hurts. 

You’ll fix it. You'll fix both of you. 

“Then cum to my voice, baby.” You let your tone grow soft, “You can do that, can’t you? You love jiejie’s voice. You’ll take anything I give you, my sweet boy.”

“Yes, jiejie… I’ll cum for you.” Caleb moans, and your heart clenches at the relief in his voice, happy to get anything out of you. He’s done well. He gave himself away even when he didn’t want to, and he deserves to be welcomed back into his sister’s safe embrace to gather himself before you force him out to seek love in strangers again. “I’ll be your good boy… your obedient didi. Only yours.” 

You can hear the wet, frantic rhythm of his hand speeding up on the other end of the line, and his voice gets louder the closer he gets to his release.  “Can’t wait to fuck you, jiejie. Been thinking about it the whole time I was with her… it’s the only thing that kept me going…”

A shiver runs through you. You don’t like how this is going. This is supposed to help him move on, not make him yearn more. And yet you can’t deny him outright, his desperation getting to you more than you’re willing to admit. It’s unfair to him. You know this. You’ve somehow messed him up so badly that he now desires you like this, and here you are, using that same twisted desire to soothe your wounded pride.

“Quiet down.” You remind him,  “She’ll hear you.”

A shaky, delirious laugh escapes him, and you cringe at how loud it sounds in your ears. “Yeah, she'll hear me call out to my jiejie. The one who owns my cock.” 

Your stomach clenches hard, heat flooding your body at his filthy words. It's sick. 

Sick. Sick. Sick.

“Caleb, do you want to be punished?” You warn, “Because I won’t touch you at all tomorrow if you keep this up.”

You will. You won’t be able to tell him no, not after everything that has happened tonight. You deserve a break too. 

“No, jiejie…” He pleads urgently, voice much quieter now, suddenly sounding small and pitiful again. “I’ll be good. I’ll be so good for you. Always your good boy… just how you raised me.”

Just how you raised me.

Just how you raised me.

His hand wraps around your neck and squeezes.

You did this to me.

He bruises your skin, crushes your windpipe.

You did this to yourself.

“I’m close.” He whimpers on the other end of the line. “Do you want me to cum for you, jie?”

Your eyes burn and you swallow down the sob that tries to escape.

“Yes, didi.” You whisper brokenly.

“Will I get a reward tomorrow?” He asks excitedly, and you shudder. “Yes.”

“Hmm… I want your mouth.” He moans, pleasure thickening his voice, oblivious to your sudden change in mood. “But I want you to beg for my cock first. Want you on your knees with your tongue out and— ahh… ngh, jie, jie!”

He cries out your name as he finally cums, chanting it over and over again as if it alone can carry him through his high. You open your mouth to chastise him again, but the words die in your throat when you hear a sudden knock on the door. 

Your head whips up and you stare at your own front door in panic, heart slamming against your ribs. But then a voice comes from down the line… and it’s not your brother’s. 

“Listen, I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.” The girl’s voice is muffled but you can hear the disgust plain in her voice as if she was standing right in front of you. “But please leave my house now.”

______________________

A/N: oh no he's really done it now mc is gonna spontaneously combust. Mayhaps next chapter caleb finds out and xavi...

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[wildernessuntothemselves]

Yes, Baby... Part 5

You little brother just doesn't know any better. Or does he? cw: pseudo!incest, didi caleb/jiejie mc, face-sitting, orgasm denial, mentions of smothering, caleb is a manipulative bitch but what's new, mc setting caleb up on dates and caleb doing his best to fuck them up lol, FUTURE NON!CON (you've been warned)

Things are better when Caleb finally goes to Skyhaven.  

His misery and obstructive attitude eases once he gets to the academy and realises that he has achieved everything he has worked for. He even starts to enjoy his time there. He still whines and pouts about the distance from you but he can’t hide how excited he is about everything from the lectures to the flight simulators and all the high end training facilities. Skyhaven is a far cry from your small life back in Bloomshire and Caleb shares every little aspect of this exciting new venture with you, flooding you with text messages and late-night calls every single day. 

Your heart warms as you listen to him, and you know you’ve made the right decision to be firm with him. You knew he would shine there, just like he did wherever he went. He doesn’t brag about any of it but you can tell from the way he talks that he’s made friends easily and impressed his professors already—your brilliant songbird has finally started to stretch out his beautiful wings. 

But he still doesn’t fly off. He chooses to stay in his cage and sing for your attention. 

“Are you proud of me, jiejie?” 

“Of course!”

“Am I still your good boy?”

“Yes, baby.” 

“Do you love me?” 

“...I do, didi. I will always love you.” 

“I love you too. I won’t let you down.” 

You laugh but you feel like crying. He could never let you down. He’s your perfect didi. And if he does anything less than perfect, then it’s your fault somehow. You see that now. Without you, he was shining brighter than ever. With you, he became dirty and sad and needy. Caleb thinks he would be all darkness without you, with no reason to live. You think darkness never would have touched him if you hadn’t let it in. 

_______________________________

Things were looking up for you too. You’ve managed to land yourself your dream job at the hunter’s association, and with it you’ve moved into a better apartment that you do not have to share with nosy, judgemental roommates. It was all to yourself. Well, you and Caleb. 

He stayed over every weekend without fail. He would spend his weekdays there too if you let him. And he certainly tried. Every Sunday evening when you had to send him back to Skyhaven, he would cling to you, pleading with those wide puppy eyes of his to let him stay just one more day. 

And if you gave in and said yes, it became two days. And if it was a special occasion such as him being sick or it being his birthday or sometimes even just him crying from how much he missed you, it would somehow stretch into an entire week. He would risk missing classes, falling behind on assignments, even jeopardizing his future at the Academy, just so he would spend more time with you.

“Just the way it was before, jiejie.”

You couldn’t allow it. No matter how much your heart ached when he begged or cried, you couldn’t let him throw everything away because he can’t let go of you. 

It reminded you too much of his first day of school, how he had screamed and sobbed, clinging to your leg so tightly you could barely walk. By the time you went to pick him up that afternoon, his eyes were swollen and red, and his voice was hoarse from crying all day. The next morning he pretended to be sick, curling up in your bed with teary pleas for you to stay home with him. You had been ready to give in, anything to stop his tears, but your grandma put her foot down. She had pulled him out of your room despite his wails, insisting that he had to go to school.

None of you ever talk about what happened after that but you remember it clearly. You almost feel guilty for remembering it, knowing how hard Caleb had tried to make amends so you’d forget. But you weren’t the one he should have made amends to—it was Josephine with her broken arm and stern expression, your grandma that could’ve broken her neck from the tumble she took down the stairs. 

But Caleb hadn’t meant it. He’d only meant to push her away so he can get back to the safety of your arms. It’s what he told you when he cried and begged for you to believe him. And you did believe him. Why shouldn’t you when he never did anything like that again? 

From the depth of your memory, you remember your grandma in her hospital bed, telling you that you shouldn’t baby him so much, that he’ll grow used to getting his way and you’ll struggle to contain him if you keep it up. 

But you didn’t believe her. Caleb was an angel. It was one mistake, one second of loss of control of the power he still hadn’t learned to yield. Why would you hold it against your baby brother? 

But maybe she was right after all. You hope to whatever god is out there that it isn’t too late, that you haven't completely spoiled him. That you can still save him from years and years of rot brought on by your own ignorant hands.  

So now he only stays for the weekends.

Luckily, Skyhaven was too far for daily commutes after classes, giving you the perfect excuse to keep him at a distance for most days. Hell, it was almost too far even for weekly visits, but that didn’t stop him from making the trip every Friday evening, and you didn’t stop him either. Though you’re trying hard to direct his attentions elsewhere, it’s important to make some concessions when he’s been doing everything you’ve asked him to do… well, almost everything.

You haven’t done anything sexual with each other for months—at least not explicitly—but he still wraps you in his arms whenever he can. He still goes to sleep with you every night he’s over. And you even let him kiss you. But you ignore his hard length poking against you every time you do. And you ignore the way you feel his hands roam over your body when he thinks you’re asleep. You even ignore the way he humps against your ass or your hip or your pussy when he gets really desperate for it. He never takes it farther than that, and so you pretend you’re none the wiser. 

Yes, some concessions need to be made in order to keep the darkness away from him. 

You’re laying together in your bed on one such weekend. Caleb has his own room in your apartment—you made sure of it when you were checking out places, but he never sleeps there. 

You’re in his arms, both of you lazily watching stupid videos on his phone, your head tucked under his chin. A soft laugh was just leaving your lips when a message pops up at the top of the screen.

“Who is that?” You stiffen, seeing a girl’s name with a bunch of heart emojis in the body of the text.  

“Just some girl from a class.” He dismisses, reaching to swipe the message away, but you snatch the phone from his hand before you can think better of it and click on the message. 

Caleb says nothing as you scroll through their chat. You see message after message of her reaching out to him, asking him little questions about the lectures or their coarsework, promising to buy him coffee sometime to repay him for his help, probing to get his schedule so she can arrange for it. 

Her texts are sweet and clearly flirty, but Caleb’s answers remain polite and short, giving her the information she needs while keeping distance between them, claiming to be busy with assignments and his new job on weekdays, and his obligations with his family that he absolutely cannot get out of on weekends. 

It pisses you off. He had claimed that the girls at Skyhaven did not pay much attention to him whenever you asked him why he hasn’t kept up his second half of the promise yet. You knew it was a lie all along but you just didn’t have the evidence. All you knew was that he was stupidly popular back in school, so popular that he had needed your help to keep his admirers away from him—another one of your many mistakes. There was just no way no girl was interested in him. And now you finally have your evidence.  

“She likes you.” You say, trying to keep your voice measured. 

“You think so?” He hums, uninterested. 

“Obviously.” You snap, the irritation clear in your voice now. “She’s using any excuse to talk to you. She keeps dropping hint after hint that she wants to take you out on a date.” 

But Caleb mistakes your annoyance at his lie for something else. 

“Are you jealous, jie?” He asks against your hair, and you can practically hear the smile in his voice.  

“No, I’m pissed off that you said no one was interested in dating you when this girl clearly is and who knows how many others.”

“She’s not my type.” He huffs, burying his face in your neck, his nose nuzzling against your skin and his hot breath raising goosebumps across your flesh.

“What are you talking about? She’s gorgeous.” You strain, feeling his lips brush along your skin as he answers, “She’s not my jiejie.”

His words make you feel uncomfortably hot. You squirm in his arms, turning around and pushing him back, putting slight distance between him and your overheated body. “You promised you’d try.”

“I am trying.” He counters tightly, “I went to Skyhaven, didn’t I? I go to class. I talk to people. I do my work. Why do I need to waste my precious time off on other girls when I could be with you?" He pulls you flush against him once more, his arm wrapping tightly around your waist. "This is already perfect."

"It's not perfect." You insist, "It's—"

"Wrong." He interrupts, a small smirk tugging at his lips as he parrots your voice. "It's so bad, didi. We can't do this anymore." He giggles, and suddenly he’s kissing you, hot and eager. 

You’ve grown familiar with the feel of your brother’s lips on your own, and all the whirlwind of emotions they conjure—guilt, shame, anger, lust, embarrassment, love, despair, relief, misery… every one of them fighting and clawing to get the upper hand, to wreak havoc on your mind and body. 

But when you open your eyes to look at Caleb, all you can see on his face is lust, need, happiness, and love. He feels none of the horrible, nauseating emotions that gnaw at your bones and once again you have to contend with the fact that you’d coddled him too much. You’ve done a damn fine job of keeping the bad feelings away from him growing up that he never learned that sometimes those bad feelings can be good and serve a purpose. 

You grab his hair and pull his head back firmly. “Stop it.”

He shakes his head, that damned stubborn look on his face, but to your surprise he doesn’t try to kiss you again. Instead, he does something much worse. "If you didn't want me to want you, jiejie, you shouldn't have been so sexy, or so nice to me. You should have covered up and kept me at a distance. Maybe pulled my hair or hit me when I acted up… though knowing me, that probably would have turned me on more. I may have snapped and pushed you down, ass up, and—"

Your hand reaches out and strikes him across the face, your entire body flooding with lava. What is he saying? Is he blaming you for being a good sister? For not beating him up? For wearing comfortable clothes around the house? Is that how you brought this on yourself? 

No. He says even if you hit him he would have still wanted you, maybe acted out even earlier… Was there no way to prevent this? Was this always going to happen? Why? Is there something wrong with your brother? Was he born like this or did you bring it out of him?

Oh, it had to be you. He’s perfect without you. It’s you. He said it himself. There had to have been something wrong with the way you raised him. Were you too nice to him? Is that not how siblings acted? Did you dress too provocatively? Should you have maintained more boundaries between you?

Yes, yes, and yes. You know that. You’ve always known that. You’ve seen how other siblings were, no matter how close they were, no one was as close as you and your didi. People always made comments about it. At the time you just brushed them off because you thought they just didn’t have the love or connection you and your brother did. But now you know that there was a reason for that. It was as if all other older siblings were handed this a secret manual at birth on how to be normal but you somehow got skipped. You thought you and Caleb just loved each other all that much more than any of them. How arrogant you were.  

"If you won’t take this seriously, then get out." You hiss, more angry at yourself than him, and his laughter abruptly stops. 

"No, I am serious. I am so serious about this, jiejie." He promises, but you suspect the two of you are talking about very different things.

“Please. I miss you.” He begs, uncaring that you just slapped him, and kisses down your neck. You feel his hands roaming your body, his hips bucking ever so slightly against you, and you grit out, “Ask her out on a date.”

Caleb pulls back with an indignant huff. “You're setting up playdates for me now? Aren't I too old for that, jie?”

“If you’re not too old to need to go to sleep cuddling your big sister, then you’re not too old for me to set you up on dates.” You tell him, lips pressed tightly together. He can’t have his cake and eat it too. 

“I told you I don’t have time.” He scoffs, “Training to be a pilot isn’t easy, you know? I need to focus on my studies so I can do well and get a job at the DAA.”

“You’re already top of your class, a few dates won’t change that. Besides, you don’t have to visit me every weekend. You can go on a date instead.”

Caleb looks at you horrified. “Go a whole week without seeing you? Now you just want me to fail. Because how do you expect me to study when my entire motivation for doing so is that I get to see you on the weekend?"

Your heart flutters and you can’t help the way it softens at his confession. “Oh, my sweet baby.” You run your fingers through his hair and he leans into it, kissing your wrist. How can you be firm with him when he is so soft for you? You feel yourself slip into old patterns, your will being pulled apart by his need for his big sister's love and attention. 

But then his kisses descend down your forearm and then your arm and you quickly put a stop to it before things get out of hand. You have to be strong. This is for his own good.

Retracting your arm, you try to compromise with him, “Then you can go on a date on Saturday and come visit me on Sunday.”

“I already don't spend enough time with you since I’ve gone to Skyhaven and you want me to halve it? Do you not care about me at all, Jie?” He asks, looking genuinely hurt, and you sigh wearily. It’s an uphill battle trying to get Caleb to sacrifice his jiejie time, always has been. You have to end it quickly before it devolves into another long, painful fight.  

“If you go on a date on Saturday, I can reward you on Sunday.” You coax, and this time you’re the one who gets closer to him. Steeling yourself, you climb on top of him and bend down, kissing along his neck. You take the opportunity to inhale his scent and feel his warmth that soothes you so well. You understand why Caleb clings to you so much, you really do. He’s the most important person in your life, the one you love the most. His presence alone brings you comfort and happiness. And that’s why you have to make sure nothing can ruin that—even him. 

“You're playing dirty.” He groans, and tries to touch you. But you grab his hands and pin them by his head. “Touch me and I stop.” 

“You’re so mean.” He whines as you grind on his cock and kiss along his neck, careful not to leave any marks no matter how many times he has begged you to. “Haven’t gotten me off for months and now you’re dangling this in front of me like a dog treat and forcing me not to bite.” 

“Maybe it’s because you’ve been a bad pup, didi.” You purr, ignoring how your core is slicking at the feel of his hard cock nudging your clit, trying to push back the memories of the time you had felt his hot flesh directly on you. You’d spent weeks contending with the guilt of it, of wishing he had gone all the way and finally filled that black hole inside of you… and you don’t want to go back there. “You were supposed to date a long time ago. If you did, you could’ve been doing whatever you wanted with your girlfriend and you wouldn’t be so pent up.”

“You think I want anyone else?” He pants hotly, “It’s only you, jiejie. It’s only ever been you.”

“You promised you’d try.” You huff, leaning up and stopping your grinding on him. 

“No, no, please, don’t stop. I miss you. I’d take anything, even if you make my cum in my pants.” 

“Text her now.”

Caleb scowls. “Jie—”

You go to get off him and his hands fly up, easily knocking yours off and grabbing you by the waist, pressing you back against his cock. “If I do, will you sit on my face?”

You blush furiously. “Absolutely not.” 

“Come on, jiejie, you won’t hurt me. I almost forgot how you taste. Wanna have you all over my face. It’ll be so hot.” He pants like a dog, and you shake your head harshly. “No, it’s dirty, you perv.” 

He scoffs, “What’s dirty about giving my jiejie what she needs? Come on, don’t you miss me?”

“No.” You blurt out, and if Caleb had been less insecure, he would’ve raised an eyebrow at how fast your denial came. But instead, his face falls. 

“Well, I miss you.” He mutters, then adds, looking at you defiantly. “Don’t you want me to go on that date?” 

God, he can be such a manipulative asshole sometimes. 

You chew your slip, your heart pounding painfully in your chest, caught between your desire and insecurity, your need to save him and your need to pull him closer. “What if—what if I smell weird? Let me shower first.”

At the smallest crack in your resolve, Caleb pounces, lifting you up in his arms until you’re hovering over his face, and then he takes a deep breath in. “I love your smell, jie. I could cum just from it if you want me to.” 

“That’s dirty, you brat!” You squeak but he just grins. “You made me dirty, jie. Can’t help all these dirty thoughts whenever I look at you.” 

The lava flows through your charred remains. No. No. You didn’t make him like this. You didn’t mean to, you swear. You want to fall at his feet and cry and beg for him to forgive you. You’d give anything to make it all right, if only you knew how. 

“Can I take your panties off this time, jiejie?” He asks, and it’s like whatever god is doing this to you is having a big old laugh. 

Your stomach churns. “No. My underwear stays on.”

“But how will I eat you out properly if you’re wearing it!” Caleb protests. 

“This is a reward, remember? I can always take it away.” You say, almost laughing out loud at the absurdity of it. Reward? What the hell kind of reward is it to sit on your brother’s face because he finally agreed to go on the date you’ve set up for him?  

“You’re so mean, jie.” He mumbles, but still tries to push you down so you’d sit on his face. But instead you lean back, sitting on his chest and grabbing his phone before handing it to him. “Text her.”

“When we’re done.” His fingers dig into your ass but you don’t budge. “Now. You don’t listen otherwise.” 

“Killing the mood.” He mutters and grabs the phone, typing out something quick with his thumbs. 

Oh, how you wish, dear brother.

You snatch the phone back the moment he finishes typing so you can read what he sent and make sure he’s not up to any of his tricks. You’ve barely finished scanning the message when an enthusiastic reply pops up.

No, I’m not busy, Cal! I’ll always make time for you.

“Cal?” Your brow twitches. “That’s new.”

“Want me to tell her not to call me that?” He asks, the corner of his mouth turning up as he makes quick work of your pyjama bottoms. “I can tell her that no one is allowed to give me nicknames except my jiejie because I’m her baby, her puppy, her good little—”

You lean forward and sit on his mouth, shutting him up mid-sentence.

“That’s enough out of you.” You mutter, cheeks burning.

You try not to put any real weight on him, but Caleb has other ideas. He immediately grabs your ass with both hands and pulls you down harder, nuzzling his face deeply into your pussy like he’s been waiting months for this exact moment, and he most likely was. His nose presses against the fabric of your underwear as he inhales again, a muffled groan vibrating straight through the thin material and into your core as the scent hits him almost unobstructed.

But even through the panties, you can feel the heat of his breath, the eagerness of his lips, and the way his tongue traces the outline of your folds hungrily. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of your ass, kneading and spreading you as he pushes his face even deeper into you as if he wants to stay buried there forever.

Your thighs tremble on either side of his head, shame and heat flooding through you as you grip the headboard, trying not to topple over him despite Caleb’s eager grip and his muffled whimpers beneath you that show you how much he clearly enjoys every second of this.

His tongue works eagerly over the now damp fabric of your panties, licking hungry stripes up and down your lips before he sucks the soaked material into his mouth, trying to taste as much of you as he can through the thin fabric, whining when it’s not enough.

You’ve heard that guys rarely want to eat girls out, let alone have them sit on their face like this. Most only care about getting their dick wet and have no regard if the girl enjoys herself too or not. Yet here is your little brother, gripping your ass and pressing you down on his face so eagerly, as if he’s the one being pleasured, not even coming up for breath once.

It all fills you with those same contradicting feelings he always brings out of you—shame at allowing your brother to do this once again, fear that anything about your taste or smell or feel might be repulsive to him, and unmitigated arousal at just how enthusiastic he appears to be. Despite all your negative emotions, the sight of him enjoying himself to this extent is hopelessly gratifying to you. You want him to be happy. You want to be wanted. Or maybe it’s a need, for all of it. Maybe that’s where you went wrong. 

You start to worry about his breathing when his mouth moves down your pussy, his tongue prodding at your covered hole, and his nose now pressed between your lips. One of your hands drops from the headboard to his hair, wrapping around the sweaty strands as you try to peel your hips back just a fraction.

 “Didi—you need to breathe.” You remind him, gasping when he uses his Evol to push you back down on him, prodding his tongue into your hole with an indignant moan. 

“Baby!” You squeak, feeling his hands slide up your body, yanking the front of your tank top down in one rough motion to expose your breasts to his heated gaze. Before you can protest, his large hands are on you, cupping and squeezing your tits, his thumbs rolling over your nipples until they peak under his touch.

Your hips jolt against his mouth, overwhelmed but unable to pull back because of his Evol that keeps you pressed down on him. Looking up at you determinedly, he sticks his tongue out, keeping it still as moves you with his Evol, grinding your pussy against his tongue while his fingers flick and pull at your sensitive nipples. 

Every eager moan he makes, every greedy slurp between your legs slowly chips away at your sanity. The wet, obscene sounds of his mouth working over your clothed pussy fill the room, mixed with his constant, muffled whimpers of pleasure and your own uncontained moans. Your vision starts to swim as you approach your orgasm and you can barely see his face apart from his pretty purple eyes, his nose and mouth entirely buried in your pussy. 

“Caleb, please, didi, you’ll hurt yourself.”

Fear and arousal war through your body, but you can do nothing to pull away from him. He doesn’t let up for even a second. No matter how much you whine and mewl for him to be careful, to ease up, to give you both a second to breathe. His nose drags over your swollen clit with every grind, and the constant pressure of his hot tongue and eager mouth pushes you closer and closer to the edge until you’re tumbling over it. 

You cum on his tongue. It’s the first time he’s been able to do it, not that you let him eat you out often. Still, you never thought anyone could actually do it, that maybe you were just not a girl who could orgasm from being eaten out. But Caleb has never been the type to quit before he achieves something he wants, and he really wanted this.

Caleb moans loudly beneath you as you soak through your panties even more, the fabric completely drenched as you cum on his mouth, clearly thrilled by the way you’re falling apart on top of him. 

You try to lift yourself off him the moment the aftershocks start, legs shaking badly. “Caleb… enough… I can’t—”

But he doesn’t let you go.

His Evol keeps you above him, the heavy force pressing you down onto his face, his moans muffled but determined against your soaked panties, and you know he wants more. 

But just like everything Caleb wants from you lately, he shouldn’t have this. It’s dangerous. He needs to know when to stop. 

But before you can collect yourself enough to mount a firm protest, his hands leave your breasts and slide down to your ass. He pulls your cheeks apart with one hand while the fingers of the other rub circles around your tight hole under the soaked fabric. At the same time, he seals his lips around your clit and sucks hard, tongue flicking rapidly over the sensitive bundle of nerves in a burst of effort.

The combined sensation of his fingers rubbing at your pussy, dipping in ever so slightly, while he devours your clit, sends another violent jolt of pleasure through your already spent body. You cry out, pulling so harshly on his hair you would worry you’d pull it out if either of you had working brains at the moment, your thighs quivering uncontrollably as he pushes you straight toward a second orgasm you didn’t want. 

“Caleb, stop. That’s enough.” You squirm but he doesn’t stop. He just won’t stop. “You need to breathe.”

Please. Please. You need to breathe. 

He moves you over his tongue, his nose buried against your clit as his fingers dip again and again inside your pussy, making your hips buck and cover his face even more as you spasm around him, cutting off his breathing—smothering him. 

“Caleb, please, stop.” You beg, terrified. Is he doing this to punish you for your wicked thoughts? Can he hear them? 

You want to cry. You want to confess and plead that you didn’t mean it, that you’d never hurt him. He’s your baby. You never want to hurt him. So why is he making you? 

“Please, didi, enough.” You cry out as Caleb’s body jerks wildly under you. He looks up at you with wide eyes, meeting your fearful look, but he still doesn’t push you off, and your fear does nothing to dull your pleasure. You feel yourself barreling towards a third terrifying orgasm, all the while tasting bile at the back of your throat and feeling an icy dark grip around your heart.

But none of it stops either of you. Your body locks up as pleasure tears through you again, thighs involuntarily clamping around Caleb’s head while you soak his face through the drenched panties. 

“Please, please—” You beg, and a broken, shaky cry of relief tears from your lips when he finally lets you go, and you wrench yourself off him, collapsing next to him on the bed, your heart sinking as you hear him heave in choked breaths. 

Oh god. Oh god. 

“Are you okay?.” You pat his head and caress his chest as he pants, as if you can press the air into his lungs like your own pathetic form of CPR. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” You blubber, but he just laughs at you. “Sorry for what? That was so hot!”

You gawk at him, and as you stare at his red and messy but satisfied face, you realise he doesn’t know anything after all. He knows nothing about  those wicked and vile thoughts that slip into your brain like night terrors when you’re most vulnerable… 

“You… you could have suffocated.” You mutter, unable to keep the guilt from your voice but he doesn’t hear it. 

“I would’ve died a happy man.” He grins and it takes everything in you not to burst out crying. “Don't say that. Don’t ever say that!”

“Hey, it’s okay, jiejie.” He finally notices your gloomy mood, and he takes your hands in his and kisses them tenderly. “You weren’t really gonna hurt me. I could’ve pushed you off at any minute. Yes, I admit I got carried away but I was in control the whole time.” 

Something about what he says doesn’t sit right with you. Maybe it’s because you feel so utterly out of control when it comes to him. He could’ve stopped you at any moment but you couldn’t have stopped him. 

“Hey, don’t pout. I’m sorry. I was just so excited. I missed you so much and you tasted so good.” He whines, pressing forward to kiss your lips, making you taste yourself. To your own tongue you taste thin and a little salty, nothing you’d describe as good. But Caleb is horny. He is hormonal and delusional, and this confirms it even more. He wanted this so bad—the porn has rotted his brain so much, that he probably would have said the same thing no matter how you tasted. You’re sure if you blindfolded him and snuck someone else instead of you he would still think she tasted good. 

You don’t get the chance to dwell on the ugly feelings that thoughts wells up in you because Caleb is going again. You feel him rut against you, a wetness that isn’t your own touching your thigh now, and you look down in shock to see a large wet spot at the front of his boxers. 

“Did you—” You start, eyes widening.

“I told you it was hot. Couldn’t help myself.” He admits, voice husky and not even a little embarrassed. “Can I fuck your thighs now?”

“But you just came.” You gape at him and Caleb grins. “You know that’s nothing. I could go for hours.”

You do know. Caleb’s stamina was frightening sometimes, and you usually tapped out way before he was fully satisfied. Though you’re starting to wonder if he’d ever be fully satisfied. 

If one orgasm didn’t do the trick, you shudder to think what he’ll demand after months of celibacy. No, you have to rein him in. You don’t really feel up to getting your brother off again today. 

“After the date,” You shake your head. “If you actually go on the date with Tanya and try… then we’ll see.”

“No fair.” He whines, grinding his still hard cock against you. “I made you cum three times. At least get me off again.”

Somehow you still find it within you to loathe yourself even more though it didn’t feel humanely possible. 

“Date first, reward later.” You insist, eager to give yourself up to sleep, praying it would bring you oblivion rather than plague you with even more distorted versions of your fucked up reality. 

But Caleb is needy, and you always give him what he wants. It’s what you’ve always done. So why wouldn’t he try to get it now? 

“You don’t have to do any of the work.” He says, pushing you onto your back. “Just lay back like this and let me fuck your thighs.”

“Caleb,” You grit your teeth, “Do you want to go another few months with no sex.”

He huffs, slumping forward and burying his face into your neck, “You’re so mean, jie.” 

But he doesn’t try to push further. It seems those few months of celibacy had burned and he’s worried you’d close your legs again. Good. At least you’ve done something right. 

Caleb holds you to sleep, pressing you so tightly against him that you struggle to even breathe. But you don’t care. You focus on his own breathing—in and out, in and out, slow and deep, reminding you that he’s okay with every rise and fall, with every flutter of his heartbeat against your own chest.

He’s okay. You didn’t hurt him. You never will. You will fix this. 

___________________________________

Caleb doesn’t like Tanya. 

So you find him another girl. It’s not hard when he’s basically the most sought after guy at the DAA. That’s just how your little brother always was, turning heads whenever he went. 

Getting his attention wasn’t so easy though. He didn’t seem to like any of the girls you made him go on dates with. You never knew your brother to be picky, yet suddenly no one meets his impossible standards. This girl is too short, that one too tall. She’s too loud, she’s too quiet. She doesn’t have his sense of humor. He doesn’t like her smile.  And on and on and on.

Nothing comes from any of it except a growing reputation for being a campus heartbreaker… and him using these futile dates to bargain for more and more affection and physicality from you.

You quickly grow suspicious. Surely one of the dozen girls he’s been on dates with has to be his type. You love your brother but it’s not like he’s one of those demisexual guys with very specific preferences and kinks. He was happy enough getting off humping you for fucks sake and it’s not like you are the most intelligent or hottest person in the world. Plenty of the girls you’d chosen for him would’ve made you feel ugly and stupid if you were up against them for some guy’s affection, and yet none of them seemed to please Caleb. The only explanation you have for it is that he’s simply not even trying. Caleb can be so stubborn sometimes and if he’s gotten it into his own head that he’s in love with you, he may just be blowing off these girls. 

So you decide to check for yourself.

It’s very easy to get the location of his next date from him. You just pretend you want to make sure he’s picked a good spot, which is not unusual for you to do since you’ve been suggesting date ideas to him from the very beginning.

Your suspicions are confirmed the moment you step inside the café. Caleb is on his phone, barely paying attention to the girl sitting across from him and earnestly trying to get him to engage in their date. The little bitch. You’ll give him a piece of your mind tomorrow when he comes to visit you. And no fucking orgasms for him either. Not even grinding against your foot!

You turn to leave the cafe when suddenly he looks up as if sensing your presence, and your eyes meet. 

“Jiejie!” He blurts out and you freeze. Shit. You can’t run away now. 

He pushes his chair back and runs over, sweeping you off your feet in a tight bear hug that lifts you clear off the ground. His arms wrap around you tightly, his face buried in your neck like he hasn’t seen you in months instead of just a few days.

“Caleb, put me down.” You grumble, cheeks heating at the spectacle. Will his date think it’s weird? How intimate he’s being? You would have never spared it a second thought before—you and Caleb had always been affectionate—but now you’re starting to second guess everything you’d let slide before. 

“You didn’t tell me you’d be here!” He says, still holding you close, and your chest aches at how bright his voice is, so genuinely happy at you finally visiting him in Skyhaven. 

Oh, didi, if you hadn’t made everything so complicated, I would have been here all the time.  

“I don’t need to tell you everything,” You mutter. “You certainly don’t.” You add the last part pointedly, but before you can grill him further, his date walks over. You tense up, preparing for the same awkwardness and ridicule you’d gotten from your college roommates in the past. 

But instead, she greets you cheerily, her smile wide. “Hello! Are you Caleb’s big sister? He talks about you all the time!”

You flush, your anxiety spiking despite her friendly demeanor. You worry about what exactly he’s been saying to his colleagues and classmates. You don’t think he’s told them any illicit details, of course not. But even just your normal closeness now makes you worry about raised eyebrows. 

But the girl’s smile stays bright and genuine, and you force yourself to relax a little. “He told me a lot about you too. You must be Helena.”

“He did? Aw, I never would have guessed. You're so sweet, Caleb.” She looks at him with stars in her eyes.

He didn’t. It was your snooping through his phone that led you to picking her for your brother. But this version sounds nicer.

Caleb doesn’t answer her. Instead, he turns to you, almost jumping from foot to foot with excitement. “How long are you staying here, Jie?” 

“Just a couple of hours.” You reply. It’s not a lie strictly speaking. You could leave at any moment. You’ve already seen everything you came here to see.

“Oh.” He falters for a second, disappointment almost knocking the wind out of his sails, but he then recovers almost immediately, his excitement undeterred. “In that case, I know plenty of places we can go visit in a couple of hours!” 

Helena’s voice comes out small and hesitant. “I thought you said you don’t know many places around here…”

“Oh, they’re not for dates,” Caleb brushes her off without missing a beat. He wraps his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close against his side. “They’re for family. Let’s go.”

“Caleb, don’t be rude.” You scold, shrugging his arm off none too gently, and turn to Helena with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry for my brother. He’s not usually this much of a tool. I just never visited Skyhaven before and he’s excited.”

“Yeah…” Caleb adds sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve been begging her to come for months and I don’t wanna waste it.” 

“Oh. Well, I don’t want to waste your time.” Helena replies dejectedly, and you cringe, elbowing Caleb in the rib subtly. What is he doing? He’s usually such a smooth talker. Why is he fumbling this so badly? He is doing this on purpose. 

“Nonsense.” You say quickly. “I’m the one wasting your time. I’ll leave you two to your date.”

“No!” Both Caleb and Helena exclaim at the same time.

You look at the girl in confusion. She fidgets with the edge of her sleeve nervously, “You can join us if you want. I’ve always wanted to meet you, and Caleb clearly wants to spend time with you. It’d be good if you stay.” She puts on a brave smile, “From the way he talks, it seems like you guys were inseparable. Maybe you can tell me some stories about him?”

Oh, sweet girl. You almost feel sorry for dragging her into this mess at all. But your concern for your brother outweighs any pity you have for anyone else. Inwardly, you whisper a tiny apology to her but outwardly you offer her a warm smile. 

“Of course. Let me just get a cup of coffee.”

You sit down with them for a while, sipping your drink while Helena eagerly asks for Caleb’s childhood stories. You indulge her, plying her with anecdote after anecdote about your brother and all the times he’s done something sweet or brave or cute or funny. There is no shortage of those, and she gobbles them up, happy to get to know Caleb more somehow and you’re happy to keep the girl’s attention and not have her give up on your rude brother. 

You tell her about the first time Caleb cooked for you. It was your birthday and he wanted to bring you breakfast in bed. He had nearly burned the house down that morning because he insisted on making something elaborate and far beyond his skill level at the time, all because “The best jiejie in the world deserves more than some lousy eggs in the morning.”

You tell her about how he used to get nightmares as a kid and would need you to cuddle him and tell him stories until he fell asleep. But as he got older and started feeling guilty and silly about waking up his jiejie, he would stand perfectly still beside the bed and simply stare at you. The number of times you had woken up to find him frozen and unblinking in the dark must have knocked some years off your life. 

You tell her how you couldn’t tell him about anyone bothering you, even slightly, because he’d want to square up to them even if they were years older than him and double his size. He even usurped the top dog spot for the neighbourhood bully gang to keep them in check and make the streets safe for you from their shenanigans. 

But you don’t tell her everything. Caleb’s life story was a beautiful summer morning, full of sunshine and warmth… but even the brightest skies have their clouds. 

You don’t tell her just how late in his life you’d finally stopped letting him shower with you, and how many years you let him do it behind your grandma’s back. You don’t tell her that you stopped telling him about people who upset you when he broke one kid’s nose because of it. You don’t tell her how he had locked you up in the attic that day he went to confront the gang leader so you wouldn’t intervene and get hurt. 

And maybe hiding these things from her is just you enabling your little brother once again, just in a different way. But he has done it all for you, and you’re doing it all for him. 

Caleb sits between the two of you the entire time, fidgeting restlessly, his knee bouncing under the table. Every few minutes he leans in and tries to steer the conversation back to the present, asking if you’d like to go to that place or this one now, if you could stay longer, if you’ll visit again soon.

You laugh most of it off, joking with Helena that your brother is just so spoiled he wants you to take him to those places so you’ll treat him to something nice. He has the grace to laugh with you at least, but when he keeps pushing, you finally lean down and whisper directly into his ear, “Behave, or you can’t come visit tomorrow.”

He shuts up after that.

You turn to Helena with a gentle smile and ask her to share some stories in turn. This served no purpose to endear Caleb to her but you couldn’t help but ask anyway. You missed your brother terribly, no matter what you’d told him, and you craved the reassurance that he’s doing well and that you’ve made the right choice. 

She’s just as happy to talk about him as you were, and what she tells you surprises you. Unlike the sweet, clingy little menace you know, the DAA Caleb she describes is mature, assertive, and a natural leader. Someone that is calm and collected, dependable, a role model for others. Of course you always knew those qualities existed in him, you’d seen how tightly he led and controlled those bullies from your childhood. But whenever he’s with you, he’s the spoiled little brother who wants to be coddled and doted on by his big sister. 

So it’s quite a shock to witness how differently other people see him. He is still friendly and well-loved by his colleagues, but there seems to be an invisible barrier between him and other people that they struggle to break through. You can imagine their frustration, having someone as brilliant as Caleb so close, yet so unreachable. Once again, you feel sorry for the girl who yaps about him so adoringly.

As you listen to Helena tell you about Caleb’s achievements and heroic moments, he beams beside you, clearly happy that you’re hearing all of this. He doesn’t often brag about his talents—they’re just part of who he is—but being spoken so highly of in front of you seems to please him.

“You should have seen it! He was so cool!” Helena gushes.

“Of course he was. That’s my baby.” You reach out to ruffle his hair, but your breath hitches at the sudden dark look in his eyes. Clearing your throat awkwardly, you turn back to the girl as she launches into another story about him. 

But you can hardly hear her anymore, not when you feel his hand on your bare thigh under the table, right beneath the hem of your skirt. You throw him a pointed look and he meets it head on, unfazed, his fingers digging into your flesh. Surely he won’t do something like this here, right in the open and in front of his date?

Of course you shouldn’t have doubted him.

He slides his hand upwards until his fingers brush against the fabric covering your lower lips. You quickly grab his hand, squeezing it harshly as you push it away, your nails digging into his skin in warning, all while you keep your eyes on Helena, holding onto a tight smile so as not to arouse her suspicions.

Your seemingly unwavering attention on the girl and your continued rejection of his attempts to get you alone seems to tick him off, and he turns to Helena too, the growing smile on his face alerting you to mischief before he even makes his move. 

Throwing a bold arm around her shoulders, he pulls her against his side. “I’m not that amazing, babe.” He says smoothly.

“Y-you are, Caleb! You’re the coolest guy at the DAA.” The girl turns red at his sudden affection, and you struggle not to let your own derision show, caught off guard too. 

But Caleb sees it, and he latches onto it like a dog with a bone, his smile turning deviant and purposeful. 

As the conversation continues, he escalates his behaviour more and more, getting increasingly touchy with the girl in the hopes of eliciting more reactions out of you. You try to keep your features schooled and your words friendly as he rubs her shoulders, plays with her hair, presses soft kisses to her cheek and the side of her neck. She blushes furiously at every touch, while Caleb keeps glancing at you with that challenging look in his eyes as if to say “Is this what you wanted, jiejie?”

It is. It is. Whatever discomfort you’re feeling right now is normal. After all, what sister wants to watch her brother practically grope a girl in front of her? It's weird. 

But you don’t back down. You can’t let him think he’s winning. Instead, you use this rare instance of cooperation on his part, no matter how unintentional and provocative, to push him toward committing to more dates with her.

“I hear the Skyhaven gardens are very pretty this time of year.” You say tensely. “Why don’t you take her there, didi?”

She misses the scowl on his face as he answers. “Of course, jie. Do you want me to send you pictures of our date there?” 

“Yes.” Your smile is tight and your fingernails dig crescent moons into the skin of your thigs, but you continue. “Oh, and when I was walking by earlier, I saw this cute couple’s theatre where you get to watch a movie in a private room while cuddling on a loveseat with your sweetheart. I bet that’d be much nicer than fighting your roommates for the TV.”

Helena happily agrees to all your suggestions, eyes bright with excitement. Caleb, on the other hand, only gives in begrudgingly after you effortlessly shoot down every flimsy excuse he tries to make, right in front of his date.

Once you’re satisfied that you’ve successfully planned out several future dates for them, you finally stand up to leave, the nausea swirling in your stomach almost overpowering by now.

“Let me walk you to your car, jiejie,” Caleb jumps up immediately, suddenly letting go of his date, and her hands shoot out to steady herself on the table so she wouldn’t topple over from the sudden imbalance. 

God, you really should’ve taught him better manners, but you can’t find it in yourself to care about the girl at the moment. You’ve done your part, haven’t you? 

Still, you make a half-hearted attempt to get him to stay with her. “What about Helena?” 

“Oh, she won’t mind. Right, baby?” He asks, flashing her a quick smile, but his tone is pushy and final, not giving her much space to argue. She deflates visibly, clearly minding but not daring to protest. “Of course.” 

Maybe he has a type after all. You think to yourself bitterly. Girls who give in to everything he wants. 

You exchange polite goodbyes with the girl, wincing at your own harsh denial of coming back to Skyhaven any time soon to meet again. Like brother like sister. 

The moment you step out of the café, you mutter under your breath, “That looked like it was the first time you touched her, Caleb.”

He shrugs, unbothered. “The vibe was never right before.”

“Is the vibe only right when your sister is sitting right in front of you?” You grit out as you both start walking, and he grins widely, “Did it bother you?”

“Yes.” You retort harshly, then add when you see how his smile gets even bigger. “What was all our practice for if you never touch any of the girls you date?”

His smile falls instantly. “I don’t find any of them attractive.”

“How will you know if you don’t even try anything with them?” You hiss, annoyed that you even have to have this conversation with him. Why is he making everything so hard? 

“I don’t need to touch them to know I’m not attracted to them.” He rolls his eyes at you. 

“How can you not be attracted to a single one of them? I’m not stupid, Caleb.” You snap, your patience wearing thin after his little stunt. He can clearly be charming and affectionate. He just chooses not to. “All the girls I’ve picked out for you have been gorgeous. Helena is gorgeous. What guy would not find her attractive?”

“A guy who only loves you.” He tells you earnestly, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you flush against him, stopping you in the middle of the sidewalk. Luckily for you it wasn’t a very well-trodden path and there were only a couple other people there. “Only you can turn me on, jiejie.”

“Bullshit. I know how horny teens boys like you are.” You spit out lowly and push him away. You know that fact all too well. Your brother is insatiable. No way in hell he’s not getting turned on by any of these girls. “You’re just being stubborn. Just take her home and take her clothes off and I’m sure you’ll have no trouble performing. I’ll even rent you a hotel room if you don’t want to do it in the dorm.”

He looks at you furiously. “Are you gonna hold my hand while I fuck her too?”

“Don’t talk to me like that.” You tell him and he huffs out a laugh. “So you can ship me off to other girls and arrange who I am going to have sex with like we’re your little barbie and ken dolls, but I can’t call you out on it.” 

“It’s not like that, you brat, and you know it.” You grit out, “I just want to make things right. You’ll see it all once you’re over this.”

He laughs again. “Make it right or make me right? You think getting me to sleep with her will fix me and make me not want to fuck my own sister?” 

“Yes.” You reply, just as stubborn as he is. 

“You’re delusional.” He says and now it’s your turn to laugh. “Look who’s talking.”

He shakes his head, and it’s like a veil has been lifted off his eyes and you can suddenly see the sadness in his gaze. “You’re really okay with just pushing me off to any girl that’ll take me?”

You hesitate. This is not how you wanted it to go for him. You wanted him to find true love and for the intimacy to come naturally. You wanted it to be the best, most beautiful experience it could be for him. But if you leave it up to him, it may never happen at all. Or worse, it may happen with you, and you don’t want that for both your sakes. “They’re good girls. I made sure of it.”

“And you’re okay using and deceiving these good girls just to try to get rid of me?”

“I’m not trying to get rid of you.” You insist, “And I’m not deceiving anyone. They like you and want to date you. There is no reason you can’t fall in love with them.”

“You know the reason.”

“No, Caleb.” You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Stop this. We had a deal.”

“What if I don’t feel like giving my body away to someone I don’t love just so you’d feel better about my feelings for you?” He challenges, “I am not a mindless horny teen who’d fuck any hole any chance he gets. The things I’ve done… it’s only been because of you. I’d do anything for you. But I won’t give my body away to someone else when you’re the one I love.”

You gulp and look away. You know he’s right. It’s his body and you shouldn’t be pushing him to have sex with just anybody. Two years ago, you never would have even dreamed of it. But you’re backed into a corner and you don’t know what else to do, and your thoughts are getting uglier and uglier. Nothing you’ve tried so far has helped and time is flying by frighteningly fast. With each passing day you come closer to your end of the promise with him—the one you never really expected or intended to keep. 

It seems like you’re both liars in that regard. 

“Okay.” You finally say and he looks at you with suspicion. “Okay?”

“You’re right. It’s not fair for me to force you to have sex with someone you don’t want. You should only do it when you really want to.”

He rushes forward and pulls you into his arms again, his forehead resting against yours as he breathes a sigh of relief. “I really want to, jie. Let’s go to that hotel you mentioned. I’m ready, please.”

“I’m not. I don’t want to have sex with you, Caleb.” You tell him bluntly, and it’s like you’ve slapped him in the face. “Just as it’s unfair of me to force you to be with someone, it’s also unfair of you to demand I give you more than I feel comfortable giving.” You pause, taking a deep breath to steady yourself before you continue, “Since you’re not interested in being with anyone else and won’t give it an honest try then our deal is void. There is no reason for us to keep doing any of this.”

His eyes widen in panic. “No! No, you can’t do that to me. You can’t just take it all away just like that.”

“It’s what I should have done from the start.” You say and he shakes his head. “No! You’re just doing this to punish me for not doing what you want.”

“Believe me, Caleb, none of this is what I want.” You mutter bitterly, but you know there is no getting to him in this state. “I should go. Maybe it’s better if you don’t come to Linkon tomorrow or for a couple of weeks maybe. Get some time to cool off.” 

“I don’t need to cool off! I need you! Jiejie, please!” He latches onto you, refusing to let go, his hysterics catching the attention of the few passerbys.  

“Caleb, you’re making a scene.” You say in a low voice but he shakes his head harshly. 

“I don’t care. I don’t care.” He buries his face in your neck. “Don’t leave me. I’ll do it. I’ll do it, okay?! I’ll hook up with someone. But not her. I’ll find someone on my own. Please. Please, jiejie, don’t do this to me.” 

_____________________________

A/N: this one's a biggie folks. mc is really starting to spiral and next chapter will definitely change the tune. all i gotta say is poor mc lol lmk what you think it's so fun to go on this fever dream with you lol follow me on twitter @/Wildernessunto1 so we can goon over lebleb together and maybe i can share all the little unhinged ideas i have that don't get turned into fics! taglist for all my caleb fics: @mcdepressed290, @monoidmango, @seraphineash, @lewdcifer778, @strayy-kidz, @virtualdonutcashdeputy, @airachniide, @deceptive-solitude, @mimiluvzu2, @smmnlz, @secretarykitten, @fukyachickennuggets-blog, @joannafaustus, @rose3heartzzz, @unadulteratedtranquility, @pixiu-palindrome, @iwillstealyouruwus, @lilkittenskiss, @remnantsofgildedcages, @cinnabean3, @pookiei-bookie, @cembreeee, @ariapok, @bypanana

[pzxce]

linkon mc: ? i asked when is your bday, not HOW you were born

the twins: oh

[earlgreylatte]

After nearly a year, and now over 6k words, it’s finally done…

I’ll post it tomorrow, I need a coma…

[qintten]

kitty lads dividers!

i drew these mainly for me in case i wanna use dividers someday but free to use for anyone! just cred me (ᵕ ´ ∇ ˋ ˶)

also this is late but waaa ty 100 followers mwamwa.... i hope we can all be good friends nodnod

[snoozer-crow]

sylus rescued you from a kidnapping. sitting with him in the quiet aftermath, staring at nothing as he gently rubs cream into the welts left on your wrists from the restraints. neither of you are quite sure what to say. you just want to go to bed.

you're not sure how much time has passed, but he's done. he wraps his arms around you and pulls you close. you only now realize that you've been shaking. his revenge was enacted, the destruction he yearned for already unleashed. all that's left is the silence.

he knows you don't want meaningless condolences, so he doesn't offer them. you've long ran out of things to say. all you can do is lie still and ride it out in his arms.

and so you do.

. . .

you wake up an indefinite amount of time later, wrapped up in his arms in bed. not quite sure how you got here, but also not caring, you close your eyes again and rest against his chest. it's warm here.

[atzeroo]

Suffering - Caleb X MC

Oh how often Caleb wishes he could take all that suffering from you. ─ .✦ established relationship, period comfort(?), Caleb is whipped for you and not even denying it ─ .✦ word count: 1.5k

"Do me a favor and just stab me in the stomach already. I don't think I'm able to stand this any longer-"

Caleb's head whips around, eyebrows furrowed in worry as his eyes settle on you and the way you are tightly holding onto your tummy, "Pips, stop it. I love you, but please don't joke around like that-"

When you can't help but let out a tiny groan, the pain in your lower stomach almost unbearable to handle no matter what position you take on, his eyes widen and he's immediately right by your side, one hand gently rubbing down your back.

"Are you sure you don't want to take some painkillers now? The heating pat is obviously not working right now and I hate to see you in pain like this.."

He is doing that thing with his eyes again: looking like the saddest puppy in the world because he doesn't know how to help you when you are going through your monthly pain again, everything he could've prepared in advance already stocked up and always at arms length for him to go and grab if only you asked for it: be it a snack you really craved or the exact hoodie of his that you really wanted to wear right at this moment.

You are pretty sure, Caleb dreams of a world where he can take that pain from you and make you never suffer from period pains again (which isn't a world where you get pregnant of course — he knows that would only open another can of worms he isn't ready for yet). Sometimes, when you see him worry over you as the cramps make you wince and whine, you wonder if he can feel how painful it is with how much his face scrunches along, something so agonizing in his expression that fills up your heart each time.

He never takes it as an inconvenience or something that ruined a supposed date night; Caleb is the type who will remind you two days prior that you should be getting your period soon, your personal tracker so you never had to worry about it anymore with him now around.

And you deem yourself pretty lucky having him support you through it, something so adorable in the way he panics when you call for him and simply wanted to ask for a massage or if he could fetch you a drink from the kitchen whilst you are stuck in bed. He almost looks guilty that you have to suffer through the pain; always so careful with you because he knows it's something out of your control and so he tries his best to make it as painless and comfortable for you as he possibly can.

But what years of experience never prepare him for is the absolute obscenity that are the complaints coming out of your mouth as you are wringing in pain next to him; irrational ramblings about wanting to tear through your stomach and rip out that part of you that nature has deemed important enough yet only leaves you in prolonged anguish for; begs of how you won't mind if he helped you pass out, because you just couldn't fall asleep no matter how exhausted you felt, the excruciating pain in your back so adamant in reminding you how miserable you were doing.

And he knows you are just overreacting when you complain to him openly like that: a part of him secretly grateful that you don't shy away from letting him know, but it still doesn't sit right with him. Especially when it makes him feel like his hands are tied, every part of him wishing to take that pain from you and give you proper rest.

"No, painkillers are only for when I'm actually crying and begging you to actually take me out", you murmur, fingers gripping onto the soft blanket as you contort your face when another wave of cramps hit, a small hiss slipping past your lips, "..i fear I'm not the toughest cookie, Caleb-"

"And that is completely fine, honey. You know I prefer soft and chewy cookies anyways", he gently mutters, brushing strands of hair off your sweaty forehead, "you are driving me crazy when you are trying your hardest and don't want to listen to me, I swear.."

Caleb rubs small circles over your stomach, brows constantly furrowed as his eyes scan your face over and over again, observing the way your face twitches and how your hands grab to press the heating pad closer.

"…Do you think I can turn the heating pad up so I can just burn the pain away?" you quietly ask after a moment of silence, only to be met with the angriest expression on his face for this afternoon yet.

"Don't you dare think about doing that again", Caleb retorts, shaking his head, "It took months for those spots to finally heal, I'm not letting you do that ever again-"

"Pleeaasee", you whine, trying your hardest to show him your best pleading face despite the sting in your lower stomach, "Only a tiny bit hotter, I swear it's not going to be that bad this time, I'll put on another shirt just in case!"

"Last time you said that, you sneaked it under your shirt anyways when I wasn't looking", he grumbles, pinching your cheek as a light scolding, but immediately leans over to press a kiss there as an apology, "I'm not taking any chances with you, pips, especially when you are trying to act tougher than you really are. And as much as I love that about you, I'd like for you to depend on me more, alright?"

You know there's no way for you to talk back anymore; not when he's completely right (and you know it) and you have been awfully stubborn about making it seem like you can handle it (there's something about this logic of thinking you can overcome any pain if you tried hard enough), so all you are left with is your usual pout, lip jutted out as you watch a grin form on his face, because he finally got you to admit defeat.

Caleb gets up to grab painkillers from your bedroom for you. He even returns with a bag of your favorite chocolates; the ones he exclusively gets from a store in Skyhaven that you have become obsessed with and crave on an almost monthly basis.

There was that one time he made the grave mistake of forgetting to get them for you, especially when you went out of your way to deliberately ask him to buy you some. Big mistake. He still hasn't been able to forgive himself for whatever he had done that day, your disappointed face ingrained in his mind as a constant remember to never, ever mess up like that ever again.

"Good girl", he hums, giving your head a small pat and following up with another peck on the tip of your nose, "you'll be feeling better very soon. Maybe you can get a small nap in, hm?"

He settles on the sofa next to you, opening his arms so you can snuggle closer and enjoy the warmth radiating of his body. Caleb's embrace is safe and comforting and will always remind you of home. You don't live together (yet), but every time he comes around to stay with you, it's like he has always belonged here, right by your side and at arm's length.

As the pain inside your lower stomach settles, so does your body finally allow you to relax. And Caleb is doing that thing again where he starts subconsciously rubbing your back, a gentle gesture he has learned will help you calm down, especially when you are feeling sensitive to any touch.

"You know, if I could I would gladly take on all that pain you are feeling each time.. it's stupid, I know, and doesn't make any sense, but I'll take on the world for you if you'd simply ask for it", Caleb murmurs, drawing gentle circles along your skin before he lifts your hand up to his lips to cover the back of it in kisses, "It hurts me to see you in pain like this"

"Can I tell you a small little secret of mine?", you ask, giggling, and Caleb hums as he unwraps a piece of chocolate to feed it to you. "Sure, what is it?"

"You will not believe the amount of times I have tried projecting my period cramps onto you"

Caleb looks at you with a look you have never seen on his face before: something about the way he is furrowing his eyebrows making him look so distraught yet perplexed at the same time that you can't help but burst into a fit of laughter. But that only leaves him more confused.

"…Pipsqueak, honey, baby, love of my life, What does that even mean?"

[starving-and-arting]

🍎✨💕

⬇️Timelapse⬇️

[trabazo]

⋆.°🎨୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ

[pasteleraser]

😌🥊💕

The kiss was my favorite part to draw

[pencintaapelll]

Certified mutualism 🤝

Headlocking or get headlock everyone?

[phosporo]

after school pipqueak club! 🍎🍏

[bloodabi]

a/n: reader is mentioned explicitly several times to not have a brother. sorry if you've got one. also reader is shorter than caleb by quite a bit, id say.

recently i've been consumed by the thought of an isekai'd caleb. he watched you die to a wanderer attack and couldn't live with the grief. instead of trying to heal and move on with his life, he went looking for you in the deepspace tunnel. after a year or so of searching, he found you again in another parallel universe. he packed all his important documents, a bunch of cash, and a few daily essentials, then made his trip through deepspace.

you had been out with friends that day, laughing leisurely when a man came up to you. this was not just any man, however. it was the spitting image of your favorite love interest from an otome game. you were bewildered as to why a cosplayer would suddenly come up to you. then he spoke. you'd know that voice anywhere. that was the in-game voice of caleb. when he asked to speak with you privately, you turned to your friends and let them know you'll only be a moment.

now pulled aside and out of earshot from your friends, he's candid with you.

"i finally found you."

"huh?"

"i came through the deepspace tunnel. the version of you in my timeline..." he let the sentence hang for a moment before he shook his head.

"what matters is that i'm here. i found you."

he seems so genuine. it would appear to you that a cosplayer in the depths of delusion has been stalking you. there's no other explanation.

"look, i don't know who you are, or how you even know i like love and deepspace, but this isn't funny."

"you don't know me?"

"i mean, you're caleb from the video game i play. it's a good cosplay, i'll give you that. but no, i don't know you."

"video game?" now he looks more confused than you do.

"i'm your brother."

"i don't have a brother." with that, it looks like his heart has torn in half.

"we grew up together. i know everything about you."

"try me."

the man in front of you then spells out an obscure childhood memory, one you've never relayed to a friend or posted online. the only difference he describes is that he was there to see it.

you still, mouth slightly agape at what he's proven to you. you still feel skeptical, however, but there's a few easy fixes. you know there's parts of caleb impossible to recreate in cosplay.

you grab your phone flashlight and pull him down to your level by his shirt collar, shining the light in his eyes. his eyes, purple and orange like a sunset, react. his pupil contracts with the light and the iris around it expands. he's not wearing contacts.

"catch my phone with your evol." you say very quickly before throwing your phone at his face. he freezes it midair. your jaw drops before you quickly snatch your phone again.

"what are you doing?"

"you're real." this was life changing. your favorite otome boy is real and in front of you and in love with you. he came from space to see you.

"that's what i've been trying to tell you."

you're barely listening, opening your phone to pull up the only caleb you actually know. you shove the screen in his face.

"this is my caleb. he's from a dating game."

he looks at the pixel version of himself, then at you, then back again.

"dating game? i'm from a dating game in your universe?"

"yes. you're my favorite one in the game, too."

you see him turn red. you remember that him and pixel-you never really had that conversation in the game. ah. he's not used to your direct romantic attention.

while you try to explain the plot of the game to him and relate how insane this is for you, caleb watches you and realizes a few things.

firstly, he wasn't here to take care of you before. you didn't have a big brother that was cooking dinner for you. god, were you eating properly? who was making sure you didn't stay up too late? who was sending you reminder texts to eat breakfast? he bet your room was mess. when was the last time you did laundry? were you letting your wet hair air dry after the shower since he wasn't here to blow dry it for you? god, you must get sick all the time then. how could life be so cruel to you?

secondly, he came from a dating game. he's a love interest in a game where you romance him. you said he's your favorite. this just opened so many doors for him. here, you're not bound by your forbidden love, seeing as you said you don't have a brother. he can just have you. and you want him, or at least, want this pixel version of him in your phone. he's elated. he practically walking on air. it's hard to listen to all the information you're throwing at him with how the blood is rushing into his ears at the thought of finally having you to himself romantically.

"so what now?" you ask him, after finishing your long-winded explanation.

"have you eaten yet? i can cook your favorite."